SF to let people sue over racist 911 calls

SAN FRANCISCO » Fed up with white people calling 911 about people of color selling water bottles, barbecuing or otherwise going about their lives, San Francisco leaders unanimously approved hate crime legislation giving the targets of those calls the ability to sue the caller.

The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday on the Caution Against Racial and Exploitative Non-Emergencies Act, also known as the CAREN legislation. It’s a nod to a popular meme using the name “Karen” to describe an entitled white womanwhose actions stem from her privilege, such as using police to target people of color.

All 11 supervisors signed on to the legislation, guaranteeingits passage, despite criticism that the name is sexist and divisive. It comes amid a national reckoning on race sparked by the police killings of Black Americans and instances where white people called for officers to investigate people of color.

“We don’t want what happened to Emmett Till in 1955, or the long history of false accusations of black men and boys in this country, due to weaponizing law enforcement, to threaten, terrorize, and sometimes even kill them, to ever happen again,” said Supervisor Shamann Walton, who introduced the legislation and is Black.

“I really want to emphasizethat911 isnotacustomer service line for someone’s racist behavior,” he said.

Till was a Black teenager beaten to death in 1955 after accusations by a white woman who later admitted to lying.

In May, Amy Cooper, a white woman, called 911 from Manhattan’s Central Park, falsely claiming that a Black man— who had politely asked her to leash her dog— was threatening her. She has been charged with filing a false police report.

In San Francisco, a white couple was criticized on social media after video was widely shared of them questioning a Filipino American stenciling “Black Lives Matter” on a retaining wall in front of his home in June. They later called police.

Other places havemoved to make placing racist 911 calls a hate crime. California’s governor recently signed a measure making the crime a misdemeanor punishable by jail time and a fine.