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Move Over BBQ Becky: 'Permit Patty,' Who Sells Pot For Dogs, 'Pretends' To Call Police On 8-Year-Old Black Girl For Selling Water 'Without A Permit'

STUDIO CITY (CBSLA) — It happened again.

A woman in the Bay Area is getting lambasted on social media after video of her allegedly calling the police on an 8-year-old black girl for selling water without a permit went viral.

In a video posted to Twitter by the girl's older cousin who goes by @_ethiopiangold, the woman recording confronts a woman who is on the phone, supposedly calling the cops to report the girl selling water on the sidewalk.

"This woman don't wanna let a little girl sell some water," the woman says. The woman on the phone is then seen ducking behind a pillar.

"She calling police on a 8-year-old little girl. You can hide all you want. The world gon' see you, boo," the woman who has identified herself as the girl's mother tells her as she gets up.

The woman, who the user subsequently dubbed "Permit Patty," responds, "Yeah, um, illegally selling water without a permit, yeah."

"On my property," the mother replies.

The 15-second video ends with the woman saying, "It's not your property."

As of Saturday evening, the video, which was recorded the previous day, had been viewed over 2.5 million times and retweeted nearly 39,000 times.

The video was originally posted by the girl's mother on Instagram.

The SF Examiner reports the incident happened in the area around AT&T Park in San Francisco.

The Huffington Post spoke the woman since identified as Alison Ettel, who told the outlet there was "no racial component" to the complaint, and that she was only pretending to call the police. She said the incident began because the woman was "screaming" about what they were selling.

"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 told HuffPo.

Not surprisingly, #PermitPatty went viral, with the hashtag becoming the number 2 trending topic in the United States by Saturday evening.

As many have pointed out, this is about more than the absurdity of the woman's claim.

Journalists and media figures, such as The Intercept's Shaun King, are calling this incident yet one more example of white people putting at risk the lives of young black people by calling the police on the for trivial reasons:

"They want police to kill us. The girl was causing no harm. They know what happens when they call the police. This is evil."

 

As evidence of the disturbing trend, people have pointed to the case of the woman dubbed "Barbecue Becky" who called police to report two black men for having a charcoal grill at an Oakland park.

The woman later identified as a chemical engineer who received her PhD from Stanford University ended up crying after police told her the supposed "crime" was not very important. The memes abound.

Shortly after the incident in Oakland's Lake Merritt neighborhood, thousands came out to the "BBQing While Black" protest turned party.

Across the Bay, Ettel reportedly runs TreatWell. The San Francisco company is a maker and seller of "cannabis-based tinctures in different ratios for humans and pets," The LA Times reported last year.

The company's website is currently down.

Only time will tell if she will reach BBQ Becky's status as a buzzkill pariah, but Permit Patty seems to be well on her way.

 

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