‘I don’t forgive this woman, and she needs help’: Black child wrongly accused of grabbing ‘Cornerstore Caroline’
‘I don’t forgive this woman, and she needs help’: Black child wrongly accused of grabbing ‘Cornerstore Caroline’ originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
With tears streaming down his cheeks, a 9-year-old black child spoke out at a community meeting in New York about being wrongly accused of grabbing a white woman’s backside in a corner store — an incident disproved by security-camera footage.
With his mother standing beside him, Jeremiah Harvey delivered a simple message at the community meeting: “Friendship is really the key.”
Jeremiah’s emotional response came six days after Teresa Klein called the police and claimed the boy had grabbed her butt in a Brooklyn corner store Wednesday.
Klein issued an apology after viewing surveillance video of Jeremiah’s backpack brushing her backside as he passed her in the store. The video clearly shows Jeremiah’s hands were in front of him as he passed her.
Jeremiah and his sister, dressed in school uniforms and carrying shopping bags, could be seen and heard crying and calling for their mother as she and other customers and residents tried to address Klein’s accusations.
“‘Cornerstore Caroline,’ that’s what that is,” one person could be heard saying on the video. “Don’t cry, little man.”
Bellille also spoke at Monday’s meeting, telling the crowd, “What happened to us respecting one another, having unity and being neighborly?”
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams organized the community meeting after the video of Klein calling 911 on Jeremiah went viral on social media, sparking outrage.
PHOTO: Crying children are pictured in an image made from video shot in Brooklyn, New York depicting a woman calling police alleging that she had been sexually assaulted by a young boy. (Jason Littlejohn)
Following the meeting, Jeremiah told ABC New York station WABC that he does not accept Klein’s apology.
“I don’t forgive this woman, and she needs help,” he said.
On Friday, Klein returned to the store, as residents and local media stood by, to finally watch the surveillance video that exonerated Jeremiah. Footage from inside the store showed the boy’s book bag grazing Klein’s butt. His hands, which did not touch her, were in plain sight on surveillance video.
The episode is the latest in a string of incidents in which white people have called the police on black people for seemingly innocuous behavior.
PHOTO: Surveillance video captures the moment 9-year-old Jeremiah Harvey passing by Teresa Klein in a bodega in Flatbush, Brooklyn, Oct. 16, 2018. (Obtained by ABC)
Klein also claimed that she called the police because the child’s mother was aggressive.
“I felt someone grab my a–. I said, ‘Don’t touch my a–.’ The woman flew at me, claimed she was a police officer, threatened to arrest me and I called 911,” Klein told WABC.
Article via Yahoo News