Little 8 year old Jordan just wanted to make some money by selling water outside of her home on a hot June day, but instead she was confronted by a grown woman who threatened to call the police on her.
Jordan was with her mother Erin Austin outside of their San Francisco home over the weekend selling water to thirsty passers-by when Alison Ettel (whom Twitter has dubbed #PermitPatty) demanded that Jordan cease selling water and said she was calling the cops on the budding entrepreneur.
Austin captured the encounter on her camera phone and posted it online, which turned Ettel into an instant celebrity of sorts and not in a good way. The smug expression on her face as she called the police drew instant comparisons to #BBQBecky in Oakland who called the police earlier this year on a Black family barbecuing by a lake.
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Afraid of the Police
Jordan and her mom appeared on Good Morning America to talk about the unnerving encounter. “I did not want to see the police because I was scared,” said Jordan. “I just went … to my mom, and my mom just dealt with it.” The little girl was selling the water to make enough money for a trip to Disney World.
“Calling the police on any person of color these days is an issue. They come, they shoot first and they ask questions later,” Austin told “Good Morning America.” “Knowing that and knowing everything that’s going on in the media, why would you call the police on a child of color?”
Ettel told the Huffington Post that race was not at all a factor in her decision to confront the mother-daughter duo, but rather it was about being annoyed.
“I have no problem with enterprising young women. I want to support that little girl. It was all the mother and just about being quiet. I had been putting up with this for hours, and I just snapped, said Ettel who says she has received death threats since the video went viral.
“I completely regret that I handled that so poorly,” Ettel said. “It was completely stress related, and I should have never confronted her. That was a mistake, a complete mistake.”
Watch the GMA segment below:
