Grammy-winning jazz musician Keyon Harrold, who has performed with artists such as Beyoncé, Jay Z and Common, has just come downstairs with his 14-year-old son for the Boxing Day brunch at the Arlo SoHo Hotel in New York. wife accuses teenager of stealing her phone.
“This is my phone,” says Kenyon Harrold Jr. in a now-viral video recorded by his father telling him that he does not have to explain himself to this random woman. Both Harrold and his son are black.
“Take the case down. It’s mine. Get it literally,” the unknown woman demanded in a mask from a hotel manager.
“Are you kidding me? You think there’s only one iPhone made in the world?” Harrold, a recognized trumpeter, can be heard saying.
The driver demands that the teenager show him the phone because his father points out that they had just climbed out of the elevator when the woman started accusing them.
“He has my phone! Show me the proof! He’s not going,” the woman shouted.
“What, you see two black people—” Harrold says before the woman intervenes, “No, I’m not letting him get away with my phone.”
She then falls on them and falls to the ground.
“This incident lasted another five minutes, and I protected my son from this insanity,” Harrold wrote by posting the video on Instagram. “She scratched me; she tackled and grabbed him. He’s a kid !!!”
Harrold Jr. ‘s parents – his mother Katty Rodriguez is also a successful musician, who has been working as a saxophonist for Beyoncé for more than a decade – believe the treatment of their son was a clear case of racial profiling.
“The most painful feeling today as a parent was to feel helpless to protect my child from racial hatred,” Rodriguez wrote on Instagram.
The viral hotel video is reminiscent of other incidents where black people unfairly beat up authorities or falsely accused them of crimes, such as when a white woman called police on a birdwatcher in Central Park after he asked her to put her dog on a leash.
“I’m furious !!! We see this shit happening all the time, but it hits differently than it hits at home !!!” Harrold said on Instagram. “I usually try to keep things positive, but nothing about this video is positive.”
Harrold said the woman, who was not identified, was a former hotel guest but that he had checked out days before, but the hotel staff supported the woman and not him and his son.
“Now look at how the driver is pleading for the lady who is not even a hotel guest, and insisting and trying to use his managerial authority to force my son to show his phone to this random lady,” Harrold wrote. “He actually empowered her !!! He did not even consider the fact that we were actually the guests! Now think of the trauma my son has to bear now, and just come down to get [boxing] day brunch with his dad. ‘
Peter Van Breukelen / Redferns
Keyon Harrold will perform at Lantaren Venster on 25 April 2019 in Rotterdam.
Rodriguez also said she was deeply frustrated by the hotel’s response.
“I expect this from the Karen’s in America, but not from hospitality workers !!!!! Your job is to be hospitable to everyone!” she wrote on Instagram.
Arlo Hotels did not respond to a request for comment from BuzzFeed News.
In a statement posted on Instagram, the hotel acknowledged that “more could have been done to ease the dispute.”
“We are deeply saddened by the recent incident of unfounded accusation, prejudice and assault against an innocent guest of the Arlo Hotel,” the hotel said.
Harrold said an Uber driver returned the iPhone she had left in the car shortly after the woman’s false accusations, and that neither the woman nor the hotel apologized.
However, the family reported the incident to police, and an NYPD spokesman confirmed to BuzzFeed News that a harassment complaint had been filed.