#PermitPatty speaks out claiming she’s the victim after calling police on girl selling water
Alison Ettel, aka #PermitPatty, the woman who called the police on a 8-year-old Black girl for selling water spoke to the Today Show to defend her racist actions and offer up a sorry apology for not minding her business.
—#PermitPatty, the who called police on Black girl selling water, faces backlash—
“I want the little girl to know that it’s not her fault,” Ettel told NBC in an interview on The Today Show.
“I want the mother to know this was nothing to do with race at all. It had everything to do with the disturbance. I was very stressed out. I definitely made comments that I never would have in any other situation, and it’s not an excuse.”
A viral video has set the internet on fire starring the white woman now called #PermitPatty cowardly calling the police on a little girl who was selling—wait for it—bottles of water to fund a trip to Disneyland.
There is growing confusion about why white people have been using 911 like it’s customer service to call the police on Black people for nothing. And in this latest racist incident, a black mom took matters into her own hands to capture the woman, Ettel on video trying to report her daughter for not having a permit, reports the Huffington Post.
Now named #PermitPatty by no-chill Black Twitter, Ettel faces off with the vigilant mom who goes by @ladyesowavy, on Instagram. “This woman don’t want a little girl to sell some water, she’s calling the police on an 8-year-old girl,” the mother said on camera.
Ettel said the situation had nothing to do with race. She confronted the little girl, who has been identified as being named as Jordan, because she wanted to question if sale was legitimate. The heated exchange
“It was continuous,” Ettel told “Today.” “It was like, ‘Two dollars, cold water, two dollars,’ just nonstop for two hours. It just got pretty difficult to deal with.”
Ettel claimed she asked a security guard to check out the situation because she became rattled with the girl and mother yelling outside of the building where she worked.
“[Austin] said, ‘Why don’t you call the police? I have the right to be here,'” Ettel recalled. “And I said, ‘I actually think you might need a permit.’ And that’s when things escalated.”
But the mother said Ettel is lying and never asked them to settle down. She came out of the building and launched an attack on her and her daughter.
According to reports, Ettel spoke to police and asked if the family could sell the water and police told her it was illegal. She said when police asked her if she needed them on the scene, she declined their offer.
“There was no point in having the police come,” Ettel said. “That wasn’t it. I just wanted them to be quiet or move to a corner. They were being disruptive. That was it. It was nothing about selling the water. It was just the disruption.”
Austin believed Ettel intentions were racially motivated and said she has non-white family members who have done the same thing without incident.
“We’ve been out before with my nieces who are full white and she didn’t come out here and they were being way louder than Jordan was by herself,” Austin said.
Ettel said she has not had death threats and someone made her address and phone number public.
She now regrets not minding her own business.
“I’m not proud of how I acted, Ettel told “Today.” “I would have taken a walk. I would have done something, not that. It was all in the heat of the moment, and it was wrong.”
