Alison Ettel has earned the not-so glamorous moniker #PermitPatty after she was filmed calling police on an 8-year-old black girl selling water.
In a video posted to Instagram Saturday (June 23) Ettel was seen calling authorities on the minor because she didn’t have a permit to sell her bottles of water. However, Ettel spoke with reporters and said her actions had nothing to do with race, and she only pretended to call law enforcement.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BkXWMlWguex/?utm_source=ig_embed
Ettel said the reason why she fake called the cops is because the little girl and her mother were supposedly too loud while trying to sell water.
“They were screaming about what they were selling,” Ettel said. “It was literally nonstop. It was every two seconds, ‘Come and buy my water.’ It was continuous and it wasn’t a soft voice, it was screaming.”
Ettel,who recently lost her job but now has a marijuana for dogs business in San Francisco, said she feels “horrible and heart-wrenched.”
The short Instagram video, which has gone viral, sparked discussion on social media about the dangers of calling police on black people for non-threatening activities.
This is why gentrification is a form of violence. This white woman is selling weed and profiting while black folks sit in prison for life for the same thing, but then she calls the cops on a little black girl selling bottled water. #PermitPatty https://t.co/q6cPmzSXPz
— A Dawn (@HollaBlackGirl) June 24, 2018
https://twitter.com/Ms_Urbane/status/1010662316906512386
https://twitter.com/Shakestweetz/status/1010653221508042761
Imagine being a white women selling cannbis calling the police on a black girl for selling water. Imagine the privilege. #PermitPatty
— Chill Blinton (@dimejibabalola) June 23, 2018