More than 98,000 people have signed an online petition arresting the arrest of ‘Soho Karen’ Miya Ponsetto after her viral falsely accused a black teenager of stealing her iPhone.
The petition, filed by Ben Crump, a leading civil rights lawyer representing the family of Keyon Harrold Jr. represented comes as calls for Manhattan prosecutors to charge Ponsetto in the Dec. 26 incident at a hotel in Soho.
“Keyon Harrold Jr. will live with this trauma for life, the weight of racism on the shoulders of another generation,” Crump wrote online. “He deserves better than this treatment!”
The petition seeks 200,000 signatures.
Protesters also gathered outside a Los Angeles police station over the weekend, where Ponsetto is now lying low, demanding that she be arrested in New York for the incident.
Harrold, the 14-year-old son of jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold Sr., was with his father at the Arlo Hotel when Ponsetto charged him and accused him of stealing her iPhone – which was later returned to her by an Uber driver. is.
During the encounter, Ponsetto is seen fighting with the teenager.
The older Harrold posted the video on his Instagram page.
Last week, NYPD officials said the case, which was originally classified as harassment, could be upgraded based on footage of the encounter, which shows Ponsetto grabbing the teenager’s leg and trying to tackle him.
Crump’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.