The woman has been dubbed "Permit Patty" for calling the police on an eight-year-old girl. Photo / Twitter
The woman has been dubbed "Permit Patty" for calling the police on an eight-year-old girl. Photo / Twitter
A white woman who has faced backlash for calling the cops on an eight-year-old black girl selling water outside of her San Francisco apartment building broke down in tears on Monday as she described the death threats she as received.
Alison Ettel, 44, was caught on camera calling 911 to report eight-year-old Jordan Rodgers for selling bottled water without a permit on Friday, to fans headed to the nearby San Francisco Giants stadium, according the Daily Mail. Jordan's mother, Erin Austin, took video of Ettel calling the police, posting the clip to Instagram and Twitter and giving Ettel the nickname #PermitPatty.
The video quickly went viral and Ettel, speaking out to the Today show on Monday, said she has received thousands of hateful emails.
“I tried to be polite, but I was stern.” Woman at center of controversy for calling police on an 8-year-old girl selling water outside her home speaks out in an exclusive interview pic.twitter.com/VnT9n1JfGd
In the interview, Ettel breaks down in tears as she says she's received "all kinds of threats" - including "death threat" - many of the messages containing "horrible, horrible images".
While Ettel says she's not proud of herself for calling the police on a little girl, she explained her reasoning, saying she was trying to get work done upstairs and couldn't concentrate with the girl and her mother's yelling.
She also said she only confronted the girl's mother.
"I was trying to be polite but I was stern and I said 'Please, I'm trying to work and you're yelling, you're screaming, and people have open windows, it's a hot day, can you keep it down?'" Ettel recalled.
Alison Ettel, 44 (pictured), broke down in tears as she described the thousands of threats she's received since she called the cops on an eight-year-old girl. Photo / NBC
But Austin said Ettel never asked them to be quiet, instead coming downstairs and immediately demanding "to see a permit to sell water from an eight-year-old".
Ettel said she would like to apologise to Jordan and her mother, but the two have said they would not accept her apology.
The online firestorm has also come down upon the company Ettel runs, TreatWell, which makes cannabis tinctures for cats and dogs.
Magnolia Oakland, a dispensary that carries TreatWell's products, said in a statement that it had immediately dropped the company's products upon learning of the video.
'I did not want to see the police because I was scared,' Jordan Rodgers told Good Morning America on Monday. Photo / GMA
"After seeing this video of their CEO, calling the police on an 8 year old entrepreneur selling water on a hot day, we decided without hesitation that we could no longer patronise her company,' the dispensary said.
"Treatwell was one of our best selling products but to us, Integrity is always above profits."
Jordan was selling the water to raise money to go to Disneyland, since her mom recently lost her job.
Since the story went viral, musician Jonathon Brannon stepped up and offered to buy the family four tickets to the theme park.
The police need to start issuing citations for these meaningless calls that waste time and resources. Hit #PermitPatty and #BBQBecky with a ticket and maybe they'll stop calling the police for EVERY SINGLE TINY THING. https://t.co/fAZdktzBcU
Critics who spread the video far and wide said the threat of calling 911 on the black woman and child was racist and 'evil'.
"They want police to kill us. The girl was causing no harm. They know what happens when they call the police," wrote columnist Shaun King. "This is evil."
CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill chimed in: "If you call the police on an 8 year old black child selling water, you're saying that you don't care if that child lives or dies. It's that simple."
Actress Gabrielle Union commented: "This woman asks to speak to somebody's manager on the daily. She permanently wears folks OUT".
Several people on Twitter compared Ettel to the woman who called 911 in April over a group of black people illegally barbecuing in a park in Oakland, California.
The unidentified woman in the viral video said they were using a charcoal grill instead of a non-charcoal grill in one of Lake Merritt's designated grilling zones.
A bystander named Michelle Snider, noticed the commotion and confronted the woman for "harassing" the family, camera in hand, to record the 25-minute verbal altercation.
The woman who called 911 in that case was dubbed "bbqbecky" online, in reference to the derisive term 'Beckys' for white women.
