“Cornerstore Caroline” Lied

FLATBUSH – A video titled “Cornerstore Caroline” that documents an incident that took place on Wednesday, Oct. 10 in Flatbush, has gone viral. It shows a white woman calling the cops on a black child saying he sexually assaulted her. She said she was a cop.

We checked. She never called the cops. She is not a cop. The kid did not assault her. So what exactly just happened in Flatbush?

*Make this go viral*Meet Cornerstore CarolineWhite Woman calls police on a kid, saying he sexually assaulted her.As I walked up I noticed the argument, apparently the kid brushed up against her and she said he touched her and decided to call police on a nine year old child. As you can see the kid is crying and the mom is upset.

Posted by Jason Stovetop Littlejohn on Wednesday, October 10, 2018

The woman has been identified as Teresa Sue Klein. In the video, she is standing outside Sahara Deli Market on Albermarle Rd. between Flatbush Avenue and East 21st Street. She is on the phone saying, “I want the cops here right now.”

“Her son grabbed my ass,” she said on the phone to “cops.” Meanwhile, the child can be heard crying out loud while his mom calms him down.

“I just was sexually assaulted by a child,” she said. Bystanders can be heard yelling at the woman asking her why she’s calling the cops on a kid.

A surveillance video from the store, as reported by the NY Post, shows that the boy was carrying a shopping bag from Cookie’s (which is right across the street from the bodega). The bag appeared to have brushed against Klein as he was walking by. That’s it.

NYPD told us that there have been no 911 calls made by the name Teresa Klein. In fact, they say, there have been no 911 calls made from that location for the entire month.

In the video, she claims to be a cop. The NYPD says there is no officer by that name. Impersonating a cop is a felony, though we have heard of no charges being pursued because of this.

Klein lists her address and phone number during the phone call. While the phone number appears to be no longer in service, the super confirmed that Klein indeed lives there. Why would a neighbor want to do something like this to another neighbor? To subject a child to a horrific experience like that?

“Calling the authorities on innocent children puts unnecessary pressure on an already stretched police force, puts young people needlessly at risk for altercations with law enforcement, and instills fear, terror, anguish, and distrust in our communities,” Congresswoman Yvette Clarke said. “I expect this situation to be handled in an appropriate and professional manner.”

This is not the first time a white person has called the cops on a person of color, including in Brooklyn.

In May, a woman called the police on a black family barbequing on a lake in California. Also in May, a white neighbor called the cops saying three black men were burglars in Oakland.  The men were Airbnb guests. Then there was that Pennsylvania Starbucks episode that resulted in Starbucks closing all its branches nationwide for racial bias training (and us making a list of 37 black-owned coffee shops in Brooklyn you can patronize instead).

More recently Senator Jessie Hamilton had some strong words to say about being called 911 on for essentially – campaigning while black. He also introduced a bill that will make calling the police on innocent black people a hate crime.

“What’s worse is that my story is typical: in the past few months, we’ve heard too many stories of people calling the police on black people for engaging in everyday, normal activities like sitting in a Starbucks, barbequing in a park, even for sleeping in a university common room,” Hamilton said. “The domino effect that ensues from a racially-biased 911 call is a costly one, from the financial resources from 911 operators to the protocol police officers must then follow.”

“These incidents are part of a history of racism and profiling in this country where 911 and the police are used as weapons to exclude black people from white spaces. And the consequences amount to more than just exclusion: far too many black people have died at the hands of police officers, from Tamir Rice to Eric Garner, to Rekia Boyd.”

“This excessive response to everyday behavior risks arrest, incarceration, and death: generations of black lives pay the ultimate cost.”