Keyon Harrold Jr. Speaks Out After White Woman Assaulted Him
The jazz musician who filmed a racist encounter with a white woman falsely accusing his teenage son of stealing her iPhone is speaking out after the video went viral.
In a new video, Keyon Harrold Jr. showed his injury that he said he sustained when the unidentified “Karen” assaulted him and his son in New York City on Saturday. He said the white woman’s behavior at the upscale Arlo SoHo hotel was “unacceptable” and called her a “crazy person” while lamenting how she interrupted his time with his son on the day after Christmas.
“This is what happened,” Harrold Jr. said at the start of the new selfie video while showing an open wound on his finger to the camera. “I was definitely assaulted in front of the hotel. I’m a trumpet player so… now my hand’s bleeding.”
The episode unfolded when Harrold Jr. and his son, who were guests at the hotel, came downstairs for brunch. That’s when he said the white woman approached them angrily and aggressively accusing them of stealing from her. Harrold Jr. pulled out his own phone and began to record, eventually capturing what appeared to be the white woman lunging at the father and son and assaulting them. Harrold Jr. said she tackled them. Her phone was later found in an Uber.
“Because I’m trying to protect my son because of a crazy person saying he took her iPhone and trying to go into his pockets, trying to go into my pockets,” Harrold Jr. said on his new video. “This is unacceptable, unacceptable. On a day when I’m just trying to have a good time with my son. Right here. Unacceptable.”
After Harrold Jr.’s family and civil rights attorney Ben Crump called for the white woman to be criminally charged for assault, the Manhattan district attorney’s office confirmed it was investigating the incident.
“Our office is thoroughly investigating this incident,” DA spokesman Danny Frost told the New York Post on Monday. Harrold Jr. used his verified Instagram account to post the original video of the encounter with the white woman on Sunday.
“I hate I have to post this!!!” he wrote alongside the video. “I am furious!!! We see this crap happening all the time, but it hits different when it hits home!!! I typically try to keep things positive, but nothing about this video is positive.”
He said the encounter lasted for more than five minutes and noted that while he and his son were hotel guests, the woman was not. In fact, she had checked out of the hotel days earlier. Still, Harrold Jr. said a man who he identified as the hotel manager “advocates for the lady who is not even a hotel guest, insisting and attempting to use his managerial authority to force my son to show his phone to this random lady. He actually empowered her!!! He didn’t even consider the fact we were actually the guests!”
Harrold Jr. appealed to his followers to help identify the woman and pointed out that his son would be forever traumatized by the encounter. “No apology from her after this traumatic situation to my son, not me. No apologies from the establishment,” Harrold Jr. wrote. “This shit happens so often. It needs to stop!!!”