A video that eventually went viral shows an incident between a white man and a black man outside of a San Francisco building.
In an ironic twist of fate, the main perpetrator in the video — Christopher Cukor — has been pointed out as an executive at YouTube.
It is not clear how the story happened and what led up to it, as reports have been conflicting so far.
According to reports, Cukor aggressively approached the black software engineer, who was supposedly waiting for his friend and accused him of trespassing.
A man who called police on a black man on the Fourth of July said he did not unfairly target the man based on his race. https://t.co/wYkYifUttj pic.twitter.com/xq5oklWjrO
— CNN Tonight (@CNNTonight) July 10, 2019
He then tried to force the man to call his friend and bring him downstairs.
It was at this point that the black man — identified as Wesley Michel — started recording the altercation. Michel was reportedly threatened with a police call by Cukor.
A young boy, allegedly the son of Cukor, can be seen begging his father to stop what he was doing.
"My responsibility is not to make everyone around me feel comfortable … I should be able to walk around freely and not feel that I should constantly prove that I am not a threat." – Wesly Michel speaks out after police were called on him while he was visiting a friend pic.twitter.com/Eou77dsZhl
— CNN Tonight (@CNNTonight) July 10, 2019
Michel then reminded Cukor of the recent viral trend of posting videos of white people calling the police on black people for no valid reason, something which has already gotten multiple people in trouble.
He also asked him to listen to his son. Cukor did indeed call the police, giving a description of Michel to them, and accusing him of tailing him into the building before the door could lock.
Once the friend Michel was waiting for did indeed arrive, Cukor, put the phone down.
Reports indicate that Cukor has refused to comment on the situation in the media and has been trying to avoid questions related to the incident.
"You can't quite understand the feeling that it feels like to be African-American and have someone tell the police officer that this person has just now threatened you." – Wesly Michel on the father's statement that he did not intend to unfairly target him based on race pic.twitter.com/dO83eERMpX
— CNN Tonight (@CNNTonight) July 10, 2019
Instead, he has used a Medium blog post to tell his side of the story. He explained that his personal story marked by the murder of his father at the hand of a trespasser informed his behavior, although it should not excuse it.
Cukor did say that he also understands where Michel is coming from and all the problems with racial inequality in this country. He did offer a form of apology.
Michel appeared on CNN with Don Lemon Tuesday night and did not seem too interested in reaching out to Cukor. He reiterated that he was not doing anything wrong and he should not have to change his ways to make biased people like Cukor feel safe in a place like California.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3TnFqXI-ok
