Jazz musician Keyon Harrold and his 14-year-old son ran into one crazy-a** lady during their stay at the Arlo Hotel in Soho, New York, recently.
Harrold, a trumpeter who has played with artists like Common and recorded on the Grammy-award winning soundtrack for the Miles Davis biopic Miles Ahead, took to social media to share an incident of what he believes to be racial profiling against his son by a yet-to-be identified white woman who we will call ‘NYC Karen’ for now.
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According to Harrold, he and his son were heading to get breakfast at the hotel on Saturday when they were basically accosted in the lobby by Karen, who accused his son of stealing her phone.
A video he posted of the incident shows the woman psychotically demanding that the hotel manager take his son’s iPhone while declaring, “It’s mine.”
Despite the fact that the 14-year-old was stating that the phone was in fact his own personal phone, the manager of the hotel can be seen instructing the young man to hand over the phone for inspection.
However, Harold wasn’t having it and told the hotel manager ‘NO’, which stopped NYC Karen in her tracks.
But of course, the unidentified woman continues to pursue the father and son, with baseless accusations of criminality, screaming, “Show me the proof!” that the boys phone isn’t hers.
The video cuts off with her running after them and her voice getting progressively louder and more hysterical. In the caption, Harrold explained that she scratched him and tackled his son, adding that this is trauma his son now has to carry.
What’s worse—a few minutes after she went after them, the woman’s phone was returned by an Uber driver.
The hotel did make a public comment on the incident.
“We’re deeply disheartened about the recent incident of baseless accusation, prejudice and assault against an innocent guest of Arlo hotel,” the statement went on to say. “More could have been done to de-escalate the dispute. No Arlo guest—or any person—should be subject to this kind of behavior.”