2018 was the year of 'Living While Black': An update on the most controversial cases

Before sliding into 2019, Yahoo Lifestyle takes a quick look back at some of the year’s biggest stories, and what’s happened since, with Rewind 2018.

This year, emotional-support 911 calls to report people of color going about their business inspired the hashtags, #LivingWhileBlack, #SwimmingWhileBlack, #MovingWhileBlack, #CanvassingWhileBlack, #BabysittingWhileBlack, #EatingOutWhileBlack, #SmokingWhileBlack.

One victim wasn’t even alive — #MourningWhileBlack involved a deceased grandmother kicked out of her own funeral because a grieving family member accidentally knocked over a church decoration. The woman’s distraught family carried her casket outside midfuneral.

“People of color are questioned on a daily basis about where they fit in public spaces or whether they match people’s expectations,” Anita Jones Thomas, dean of the College of Applied Behavioral Sciences at the University of Indianapolis, tells Yahoo Lifestyle.

After a person is exposed for using racist language or calling the police on people of color for “suspicious” behavior, the video gets millions of views, and if the suspects don’t vanish from social media, they publicly defend themselves.

“We’re post-Obama so there’s an impression that racism is over or that it’s only associated with power and institutional policies, but stereotypes lead to racism, even if you don’t describe yourself as racist,” says Thomas.

For example, assuming that black people don’t live in upscale homes, such as with the woman called “Apartment Patty,” who harassed, stalked and called the police on D’Arreion Toles for entering his own apartment building in St. Louis. When social media gave Hilary Thornton her nickname, she defended her reputation and it was discovered that her estranged husband is African-American.

Thornton is one person to deny her self-imposed fame. Here’s an update on some of the most controversial #WhileBlack cases (no one mentioned returned Yahoo Lifestyle’s requests for comment).

Apartment Patty: “I do not think I did anything wrong.”

After blocking neighbor Toles from entering their mutual St. Louis apartment building in October, Thornton — legally Hilary Brooke Mueller and infamously “Apartment Patty” — lost her realtor job at Tribeca-STL for racial profiling.

“Please move, ma’am,” Toles said on the video he recorded.

“I can — do you live here?” responded Thornton, demanding to know his apartment number. Toles identified himself as a tenant but refused to provide his unit, so Thornton wouldn’t budge. “You don’t have a key fob,” she protested.

Thornton then followed Toles down the hallway, demanding, “Where are you going?” and even joined him in the elevators. “Who are you going to the fourth floor to see?” she harassed him. “I would like to know whose friends — and why you’re here.”

Despite watching Toles enter his apartment with his own house keys, Thornton called 911, although according to Phoenix news outlet ABC15, no police report was filed with the Louis Metropolitan Police Department.

Having watched the Facebook video, Tribeca-STL — a self-described minority-owned company — fired Thornton over the “disturbing interaction.” Its statement read in part, “We…never will stand for racism or racial profiling at our company.” And Thornton’s estranged husband Brandon Mueller, who is African-American, expressed his “deep disappointment” over the incident in a Facebook video.

In an exclusive interview with FOX 2 St. Louis, Thornton said she was following the direction of her homeowners association, which prohibits residents from allowing building access to strangers. Thornton also said her newfound rep as a racist was “false and heartbreaking. And those are words that truly cut deep.”

However, Thornton said she had no regrets about the incident and would like to meet her neighbor Toles — in a friendlier setting.

Robert Ortiz: “At the end of the day, my actions were unjustifiable.”

Brooklyn resident Robert Ortiz, who called 911 on his Lyft driver for refusing to turn on the radio and using the N-word while he was at it, didn’t earn a catchy nickname on Twitter, but he did lose his job.

During the 16-minute video shot in October by driver Shawn Pepas Lettman, Ortiz and his two friends threatened to “make your night a living hell” and spat, “F*** Black Lives Matter” from the back seat of Lettman’s parked car. Ortiz claimed the driver was “racist against gay people” and “I know my legal rights as an American citizen that voted for Trump…” He also called Lyft and law enforcement.

In a statement sent to Yahoo Lifestyle, Lyft called Ortiz’s behavior “extremely concerning” and medical clinic CityMD said it had fired Ortiz. “This is to confirm that this individual was terminated and is no longer employed by or affiliated with CityMD in any capacity,” the company wrote on Facebook.

A few days later, Ortiz told Pix11, “At the end of the day, my actions were unjustifiable. There’s nothing that I can say but this: I was drinking — a lot of the stuff I said, I didn’t remember until the next day. That’s not how I was raised to treat people. I grew up in the projects. So I want to make sure people understand that I’m not racist.”

Ortiz said that Lettman singled him out because he’s gay and Puerto Rican. “We know discrimination, we smell it in the air,” he told Pix11. “You just know when someone is uncomfortable with you.”

He also made a YouTube apology saying his “unacceptable” actions were the result of Lettman calling the police first and falsely reporting a robbery by gunmen. He also admitted that his racist words were an attempt to “get under [Lettman’s] skin.”

“When the video went viral, I tried to ignore it. But when it affected my job the following day when I lost it, it gave me a realization,” said Ortiz. “I know I’m going to get through this. The only thing I’m asking is to move forward.”

Cornerstore Caroline: “I regret that I escalated the situation.”

In October, Teresa Klein of New York City accused 9-year-old Jeremiah Harvey of groping her inside Sahara Deli in Flatbush, N.Y., when he accidentally brushed her with his backpack. Outside the store, with a hysterical Jeremiah, his sister, and his mother Someko Bellille, Klein told a 911 operator on the phone, “I want the cops here right now. The son grabbed my a**.”

“I’ve just been sexually assaulted by a child!” Klein yelled in the Facebook video shot by witness Jason Stovetop Littlejohn.

But store security footage tweeted by a N.Y. PIX11 reporter revealed that when Jeremiah walked past Klein, only his book bag possibly made contact with her body, showing no evidence that he assaulted Klein.

According to PIX11, police officers responded to the call after everyone dispersed, but a representative of the New York City Police Department told Yahoo Lifestyle that no police reports for the incident were on file.

The deli owner also told Pix11 of Klein, “The woman has a history of being ‘unwell.’”

Klein did not return Yahoo Lifestyle’s requests for comments and her phone number was nonworking. In October, she told Inside Edition, “What I felt was [contact] across both cheeks. I didn’t know what had happened. I regret that I escalated the situation. I should simply have said, ‘Don’t touch me.’ I shouldn’t have cursed.'”

But Jeremiah wasn’t having it, telling New York’s WABC, “I don’t forgive this woman, and she needs help.”

Permit Patty: “I’m not proud of how I acted.”

The fallout from San Francisco resident Alison Ettel allegedly calling the police on an 8-year-old girl selling water outside their apartment building forced her resignation as CEO of cannabis company TreatWell Health.

Ettel, 44, got famous in June when the girl’s mother, Erin Austin, posted a video of Ettel accusing her daughter Jordan Rodgers of “illegally selling water without a permit.” The family was reportedly trying to raise money for a trip to Disneyland.

However, Ettel told Huffington Post that she just pretended to call 911 and “this has no racial component to it.”

“They were screaming about what they were selling,” she told the website. “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.” She also confessed, “I had been putting up with this for hours, and I just snapped. … 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.”

Ettel also told Today that she first “tried to be polite,” asking those in the family to lower their voices — which Austin denies — however, “I’m not proud of how I acted. 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.”

Pool Patrol Peter (aka ID Adam): “I express my sincere regret for the actions I took that day.”

North Carolina’s Adam Bloom refused to apologize for calling the police on Jasmine Edwards Abhulimen and her child for using a Winston-Salem, N.C., pool on the Fourth of July, but losing his job at packing company Sonoco Products made him remorseful.

“I think I could have handled it differently and better and been more empathetic to how she may have felt from my interaction,” Bloom told Winston-Salem, N.C., news station WXII12 in July. “And for that, I sincerely apologize. … if I, in any way, made her feel uncomfortable, unwanted, unwelcome, especially with her child there, I want to offer my sincerest apology for that.”

Over that holiday weekend, Bloom, a former member of the Glenridge Homeowners Association and “pool chairman,” asked Edwards for her address and an ID to prove she had pool privileges. When Abhulimen refused his second request, he called the police.

Abhulimen filmed the conversation with Bloom and police officers, saying, “Is there an ordinance that we have to show ID to use the pool?” She pointed out that no one else at the pool was asked for ID. “I am the only black — I feel this is racial profiling.”

The mom even showed police a swipe card she used to enter the pool. “They kinda make their way around sometimes,” Bloom told the cops in the video. “But that’s good enough for me today.”

“There was nothing about her as a person that was suspicious,” Bloom told WXII12, saying that Abhulimen had confusingly provided two different addresses. Bloom, who resigned from his position as pool chairman and at the Homeowners Association, told the station that he wouldn’t have handled the situation differently had Abhulimen been white and that his neighborhood stands for diversity.

Gas Station Gail: “We express our regret for any actions on our part.”

In October, South Carolina activist Jonathan Thrower made a Facebook video of Murphy’s gas station manager Brenda Metz calling the police on him and a group of young people who had just come from peacefully protesting in North Charleston, S.C.

Thrower told Yahoo Lifestyle that while his group, which included children as young as 1, was inside the store buying water, Metz arrived outside, yelling, “Leave now! Leave now! I’m calling 911” and then called the police.

A 911 call published by Charleston City Paper revealed Metz saying, “I need a police officer now. I have, like, 30 people standing out here and they will not leave. … They’re standing there, they’re ‘Guns Down Chuck Town’ something,” she said about the group’s statement shirts. “I mean, it’s like a riot out here.”

A spokesperson from Murphy USA told Yahoo Lifestyle that police were called due to “safety issues” like disrupting store traffic and shutting down the fuel pipes. The representative also said that Thrower’s group refused to leave the station when asked.

Nine days later, executives from Murphy USA gas stations met with Thrower, and the company gave a statement to Charleston, S.C., news outlet WCSC: “We had productive meetings in North Charleston today concerning the situation at our station on October 14th. We came to listen and understand their perspective, express our regret for any actions on our part that have detracted from the anti-violence message that the march was intended to portray and express our commitment to becoming a great partner in the North Charleston community going forward.”

Metz hung up on Yahoo Lifestyle when called for comment in October.

Baggage Claim Becky: “We apologize to this customer for her experience.”

In September, a Delta Air Lines employee called the police on a woman trying to file a claim on her damaged luggage, and the carrier provided a statement to Yahoo Lifestyle: “We apologize to this customer for her experience in the Boston baggage service office and Delta is in contact with her to better understand what transpired. We take situations like these seriously and we are working directly with this customer to use this as an opportunity to learn from her experience and improve on future customer interactions.”

Passenger Arlene (who asked to withhold her last name for privacy) told Yahoo Lifestyle that during an Aug. 24 flight from Kentucky to Massachusetts, her suitcase got ripped, and while filing a baggage claim, Delta employees were problematic.

“I was on the phone with my friend and mentioned they were talking about me,” Arlene told Yahoo Lifestyle. “Then one told me, ‘No one is talking about you. You’re out of your mind.’”

Arlene filed a claim with a manager who she said was “dismissive.” Later, an employee named Teddra refused to provide the manager’s name to Arlene and called for police assistance.

“Hey, Frank, it’s Teddra. Can I have the state police in baggage, please?” she said in the video. “I have a lady who is in my face recording me and won’t leave the office.”

.“At that point, I left, intending to call Delta the next day,” Arlene told Yahoo Lifestyle. “I studied criminal justice and sociology and I knew if I met with them, it might have escalated. I didn’t want to go to jail. It felt like a life-or-death situation.”

Arlene suspected her race was relevant. “If a white person calls the police on a black person, it can end badly. If I were white, she may not have called.”

Coupon Ken: “My life is destroyed over coupons.”

In July, New York teacher Madonna Wilburn tried to use digital coupons to purchase cleaning supplies at Dollar General when cashier Ken Dudek said she was “trying to take advantage of the system.”

Wilburn wrote on Facebook that Dudek got annoyed while processing the coupons. “Told me he hates people like me, told me to shut up, and more. I eventually pulled out my phone…and started recording to protect myself against his nasty attitude in case anything happened…now him and his wife inboxing me.”

In Wilburn’s video, Dudek said, “Just trying to take advantage of the system, is what you’re doing, and I don’t have to do it if I don’t want to.” He also denied saying he “hates people like you” and accused Wilburn of “trying to play games.”

Annoyed, Dudek called an employee. “And I’d like you to dispatch the police if possible,” he says. “Black female, green shirt, blue shirt.” Wilburn briefly spoke to the police outside and went home.

Wilburn told Yahoo Lifestyle, “What the video didn’t capture was this man telling me to ‘shut up,’ and ‘I hate people like you.’ Did he mean women? Black women? People who coupon?’”

Dollar General fired Dudek and Wilburn hired lawyer William Wagstaff who told BuzzFeed News, “When someone says to a black person ‘you people,’ they’re being racist, referring to black people pejoratively.”

A week after Dudek was named “Coupon Ken,” he spoke to Buffalo, N.Y., news outlet WIVB. “My life is destroyed over coupons and because we both got frustrated.”

Dudek said logistical errors led to the 30-minute exchange. “If they would have investigated fully, they would have seen that the problem is in the way that they address their security and the way their coupon system works.”

“We couldn’t figure out,” he said. “Two of us couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t coming up on the register, so we’re both getting frustrated. She’s getting frustrated because this should be simple. My employees are getting frustrated because they can’t figure it out either. And she had all the coupons correctly.”

The former employee told WIVB that he called authorities only because Wilburn refused to leave the store. “I followed General Dollar’s procedures,” he said. “I don’t fault Ms. Wilburn. It’s unfortunate that this incident happened, but I think it’s a product of the environment that Dollar General sets for us.”

Dudek has received death threats since the viral video. “We don’t park in our driveway right now because I don’t want people to slash my tires.”

Sidewalk Susie: “This clearly wasn’t my best moment, and I have work to do to more consistently be my best self.”

Harvard University employee Theresa Lund was placed on leave in July for harassing a mother and her biracial child playing outside their Cambridge, Mass., home asking, “Are you in one of the affordable units?”

Mom Alyson Laliberte posted a video of Lund, writing, “I’m outside enjoying the afternoon with my daughter when this woman came downstairs and asked me if I would move so her kids can nap. Mind you it’s midday and we weren’t even being loud at all drawing with chalk. She followed me around and harassed me trying to get my information and apartment number as if she had a right to know. When I wouldn’t tell her she proceeded to ask me if I lived in the ‘affordable apartments’ of the building for Cambridge residents or if I lived in one of the Harvard owned apartments (which is all the same building anyways).”

Laliberte wrote, “It was totally discriminating and racist of her…or maybe it was because my daughter is biracial who knows.”

On camera, Lund sat next to the mom, asking, “Are you in one of the affordable units? Or are you in one of the Harvard units?” Lund threatened to “come outside your window and scream.”

Harvard’s student newspaper the Crimson reported that Lund was placed on leave “effective immediately” and that she reportedly deleted her social media accounts. Two days later, Lund apologized in a statement to the Boston Globe.

“I want to be accountable for my actions in a situation where I fell far short of my values and what I expect of myself,” she wrote. “This clearly wasn’t my best moment, and I have work to do to more consistently be my best self.”

The executive director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative also told the Boston Globe that she “should not have addressed [Laliberte’s] daughter, and there was no reason for me to ask what type of unit she lives in.”

“I offered my sincere apology to her, her mother, and her daughter in person [Sunday] morning,” wrote Lund. “I love our community and am committed to engaging in dialogue and actions about how to make it more welcoming and pleasant for all of us to live in together.”

Lund’s profile was reportedly erased from the Harvard website; however, it’s currently active.

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