My guess is she’s going to use the familiar argument that she felt threatened by some black people, therefore she will conclude the black people were doing something which justified her feeling. So she sees what she did as defending herself even if she took the initial action.
It’s the Zimmerman defense: “I was just innocently stalking this black person and when I pointed my gun at him, he suddenly attacked me for no reason.” Some people just can’t see that they are the ones who provoked the problem. They think that their actions were justified and reasonable and it’s the other person who caused the problem by responding to what they’re doing.
Why should the hotel let her view security camera footage? Because she has some unfounded idea that her phone was stolen there? Doing so requires tying up the time of someone in the security department for an hour or several while they help her do so. If there was some reason for her belief, she could have gone to the police and they could have requested the footage.(Of course in this case, on questioning her, they would quickly realize that she had no reason to think that her phone was lost there.)
And doesn’t she have Find My iPhone (or the Android equivalent)?
Where does this understanding come from? It doesn’t make sense as a timeline. She wouldn’t have gone back to the hotel 4 days later to try to find the phone thief, she must have gone back for some other reason, and then realized her phone was missing after she was there (otherwise, how would the Uber driver have it?). Also, apparently she first demanded that everyone in the lobby turn out their pockets.
From the NY Post:
The woman — whose name was withheld by CNN — said that when she realized her phone was missing, she first demanded to see surveillance video from the hotel lobby.
So it sounds like missing the phone had just happened.
I am basing this timeline on what I have read in reports of the incident. It was reported what day she checked out and what day the incident occurred.
Her apparent reason for going back to the hotel was to ask to see security footage. I assume this would have been footage from when she was staying at the hotel but I don’t know this for certain. I also don’t know why she felt seeing this footage would be helpful to her recovering her phone.
I disagree that this is apparent. According to the stories I have read, she first realized her phone was missing, then said everyone in the lobby should empty their pockets, then demanded to see the security camera footage, then started in on the black teenager she spied with a phone. None of that makes sense if she had lost the phone four days before.
Look, sorry, nothing personal, but I think you have the wrong end of the stick. No-one knows why she went back to the hotel, but it is clear that she lost her phone on that trip to the hotel and not four days previously.
I know the young kid happened to be black and her personal racism probably entered into it but it almost seems to me she was just a complete nutjob who went on a crazed tear accusing everyone around her and making demands of everyone. Demanding the hotel let her watch surveillance video. Demanding everyone empty their pockets. I almost feel if she would have seen any teen carrying a cell phone she would have pounced on them demanding to see it.
Are you her lawyer? Because I suspect this is an argument that is going to be made on her behalf (minus terms like “nutjob” and “crazed” perhaps). They will probably point to some external reason for emotional stress that contributed to her behavior, that this is nothing like her, that’s not who she is, and so on. Or maybe that she was under the influence of (completely legal) substances. But what you are saying is completely assumed on your part, and has no foundation in anything we know. And I have to wonder if there were no other (i.e. white) teenagers in the lobby at the time.
Of course no-one will ever know what was really going on in her head during this time, even her probably. The only thing we can really look at, once her identity is revealed, is her history before this incident. If we can get enough of that unvarnished history, it should tell the tale.
I’m not sure what part you’re disagreeing with. Do you feel the timeline is wrong and that the incident with her grabbing people occurred while she was still a guest at the hotel? Because the articles seem pretty clear on that and I don’t see any reason they would get something like that wrong.
Or are you disagreeing with the idea that she went back to the hotel for the purpose of looking for your phone? Because I can read your post as saying she happened to go back to a hotel that she had checked out of four days earlier and while they’re she realized her phone was missing. And that really doesn’t make any sense. Why would she have gone back to the hotel if she wasn’t already looking for her phone?
I’m also unclear why you feel she lost her phone on the trip to the hotel. The articles I’ve read say that the phone was returned by an Uber driver but they only say this happened after the hotel incident. There’s no report that says the Uber driver showed up at the hotel and returned the phone in the immediate aftermath of the incident. I feel if that had happened it would have been included in the articles. So I’m assuming it happened a day or so later.
My reading of the articles led me to think she lost the phone on the return trip, not the original stay. Her actions make even less sense if she’d lost it 3 or 4 days earlier, and was now accusing random people who hadn’t necessarily even been there during the original stay.
It doesn’t really make sense either way, but one way makes a little less sense than the other.
Well, I’m sorry I made an issue of it. Not that I don’t think you’re wrong, but it’s nothing to do with the essence of the incident or why it’s in this thread, and it’s not worth arguing over. The facts will emerge eventually.
If that’s the case, that she lost the phone on the same trip to the hotel where she was accusing the boy of stealing it, that’s particularly weird. Because in the first video, she demanded that he remove the cover from the phone. So she thinks he stole her phone and immediately put a matching case on it? It’s not as if all iPhones can use the same case; the phone sizes change year to year.
I’m willing to be open to the possibility that this might not be an incident of racism. If the woman accused several people in her vicinity of stealing her phone and one of them happened to be black, that’s not evidence of racism. But if she singled out the black person in the crowd as her suspect, then it most likely is racism.
On that note, does anyone know what race the first person she accused (the one she asked to empty their pockets) is?
The accounts I read said that it was everyone in the lobby at that moment, not a particular person.
I want to be clear: I do think this was an incident of racism, the only thing I was questioning was the sequence of events. Neither proposed sequence gives her any excuse for her behavior.
I have to agree there is something weird about the timeline. The news stories don’t make it clear why she went back to the hotel or when she thought she lost the phone. Maybe she was retracing her steps over the last few days but it seems weird she would accuse people in the lobby if the phone was lost days earlier. I doubt these questions will be resolved until police talk to her. I’m seeing reports that she lives out of state so that will probably cause delays in getting that info.
And after watching that I must agree. She clearly targets this kid and tackles him.
It’s amazing how people can make up their own reality.
On a side note, I’m a “Heavy.com” hunky whenever incidents like these rise to the surface, and from the looks of it, she’s a failed wannabe actress who comes from a privileged background but can’t seem to get out of her own way and probably relies on mommy and daddy to wipe her ass.
Thanks for that link. It clarifies a lot of things, including some details (like that she accused the teen of taking off her phone case, not of putting one on, in order to disguise it, and that the “find my iPhone” feature was turned off on her phone).
