comment: >
  
  How stupid/ afraid do you have to be to call the cops on a little girl with a spray bottle?
context: I like this mom.  
  “This happened because of what happened to Bobbi, but it also happened because the whole community, the science community, got together and said, ‘She’s one of us and we’re not going to let her lose her steam,’” Joseph reportedly remarked. “I just appreciate it. It means the world.” >
  
  As someone who has done insect research professionally, even in officially marked vehicles you sometimes get people giving you odd looks and calling the cops.  I'd hate to see a little girl with an interest in the subject get discouraged because she ran into an asshole early on.  Just the fact that she has a passion for bugs so early means she has the potential to do well in the field, and we should be doing everything possible to make sure she doesn't lose that passion. >
  
  I used to check fields and count how many moths were stuck on a glue trap to see how bad the issue was in the field. Sometimes the farmer himself (who is the one who hired our company to do this) would come out to me in the field asking who I am and what I'm doing. Sir... My truck has the company logo what do you mean who am I?? >
  
  It would happen all the time on contracts for utility companies for me.  The utility company would tell us we were to to go and that they had already talked to any landowners who needed talking to and then we'd get a bunch of the landowners going "who the hell are you and why are you here?" >
  
  How many fucking companies say "yeah, we'll send someone out", and not deign to give a time or day or week or month?  It's too god damned high. I need plans! Details! Not silence for six weeks and then a random worker showing up out of the blue. 
  Also, I'm not even slightly mad at you, I'm mad at your employer for being donkeys. I'd wager we can probably even commiserate on this fact. >
  
  I'm picturing you chasing people with a pitchfork like a... maniacal wildebeest. >
  
  I like how you spelled it correctly, but I definitely am leaning into the wordplay on maniacal beast on purpose.  So yes, let your imagination run wild! >
  
  
  wordplay on maniacal beast on purpose
  
  Like Oscar Wilde? >
  
  The guy who called the cops on her is a local (town) politician well-known to the community as openly and unapologetically racist. >
  
  If he wasn’t before he sure is well known and openly racist now >
  
  You look at her photo and she’s CLEARLY just a little girl. And even if she wasn’t, what could she be doing with a spray bottle that would’ve warranted police being called? >
  
  This is an easy question to answer.  The caller was a racist Karen. >
  
  That's what I thought too, but he's actual Gordon Lawshe a racist NJ politician. Make sure to use his name Gordon Lawshe so hopefully that racist never gets elected again >
  
  You mean NJ Karen Gordon Lawshe? >
  
  RACIST NJ Karen Gordon Lawshe? >
  
  Oh, you mean THE Racist Child-hating Karen GORDON LAWSHE >
  
  Why TF is shit like this still happening!? Who reports a little girl over a fucking project!? >
  
  Someone who calls her a Black "woman" to dispatch. >
  
  
  There’s a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees,” the caller told police, CNN reported. “I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. Scares me, though.
  
  Nothing scarier than a 9 year old in a public space treating trees with a spray bottle. No way to deal with this without involving the police. If you were to approach her in the public space she'd probably have killed them with her blackness.
  "She's got some kind of hard chalky substance, and she's etching symbols with it onto the sidewalk. I think it might be gang signs or maybe a symbol to rob this house later. She's a black woman on the small side, about 2 foot 8." >
  
  You can never be too careful around the mini black folks. >
  
  I genuinely feel like we should know as a society that you don't call the cops on people unless you are ok with there being a non-zero chance of that person ending up dead.
  In fact, I feel so strongly that we should know that as a society, that I think we do know that as a society. And that leads me to one inescapable conclusion about the ~~woman~~ person who called the cops on a 9 year old spraying trees.
  Edit: Sorry, I just assumed it was some neighborhood karen. The details are even worse. >
  
  I read about this several months ago. I'm not in a position to post any sources at the moment, but the dude who called in is some kind of politician or ex politician, And he used every word necessary to get a black person killed if the officer that arrived didn't have the shred of common sense that the one who responded did. Absolutely disgusting >
  
  The attorney he hired, told an outlet that it’s “absurd” that a 9 year old black girl, who just had the cops called on her, could be afraid of police.
  Who the fuck does this attorney think they are to tell this girl what she can or cannot feel? What in the actual fuck is wrong with people??
  I wish we could shame these people into the depths of their own little existence and keep them out of the rest of society, but that would require them to feel shame and embarrassment, but we all know the only feeling they have is “fear of non-white people”. Which they’ll express over and over again. >
  
  
  The attorney he hired, told an outlet that it’s “absurd” that a 9 year old black girl, who just had the cops called on her, could be afraid of police.
  
  I'm a 47 year old white guy and if the police got called on me for just doing normal stuff outside then I would be afraid. A little kid (especially a black kid given everything that's happened)? They definitely would be afraid. >
  
  Black people are expected to control their emotions when cops won't control theirs. >
  
  FFS, it's a little girl. Just walk up and ask her what she's doing, you dumb racist. >
  
  To call her a little black woman is wild >
  
  The perceptive adultification of black children has only gotten worse over time >
  
  I’ve noticed that throughout my life, I never understood why. >
  
  You can’t hate a child, call a 9 year old a women and hate away!
  Racism. >
  
  Not just racist, you see the same thing with rape victims and its disgusting. >
  
  "relations with a young woman"
  Raped a child. You mean they raped a 10 year old child.
  I'll take biased reporting for 300, Alex. >
  
  For real. Once you start noticing it, it’s everywhere and it’s disgusting. >
  
  ...and why the GOP has made it a priority to attack Critical Race Theory. >
  
  its why they hate "wokeness" they want people to stay blind. >
  
  She's just spraying there...MENACINGLY >
  
  The body cam video of that is so funny sad. The cop is like "what's in your hand!?" and the guy is so exasperated when he open and closes the claw a few times and says "it's a trash grabber!!" >
  
  Terrifying. They keep yelling at him to put down the "weapon", the "object", etc. and he keeps repeating, "It's a trash grabber! I'm picking up trash! I live here!"
  Then when he finally sets down the bucket and trash grabber and takes a step or two away, one "brave" cop rushes in to grab them before running away with them.
  A dozen armed cops, with one cop even brandishing a shotgun, and they're all allegedly scared/threatened by a young man picking up trash outside his home. >
  
  Yes, the rest of the video is horrifying. Just the part I said made me laugh in a sad way. I thought it was so awful how he kept having to say "I live here" and the cops didn't believe him. It shouldn't even matter if he lived there, he's doing a community service. >
  
  “There’s a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees,” the caller told police, CNN reported. “I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. Scares me, though
  How fragile are you right now? A little girl with a spray bottle scares you?  You could have just asked her what she was doing. >
  
  He called for a gun cause he wanted them dead >
  
  this. the police are a racist hit squad. she wanted them to do to that little girl what the memphis cops just got caught doing >
  
  Why call the police when you can just go fucking talk to her!?
  People are just stupid, hateful, assholes. >
  
  That little black woman might have had a gun! >
  
  Not for nothing but she's so fucking little and adorable! How on earth could anyone but a racist see her as a threat!? >
  
  And yet the shit that reported her to the filth aged her by several decades.
  
  “There’s a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees,” the caller told police, CNN reported. “I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. Scares me, though.”
  
  Let's call this what it is - socially acceptable racism cowering behind acceptable terminology. >
  
  His racism aside, does he not realize that saying a literal child scared him is incredibly embarrassing? I'd rather die. >
  
  Probably why they said it was a woman instead; dude knew if he said girl he would be laughed at yet he couldn’t bring himself to realize how stupid his reaction is >
  
  Self aware enough to know that, but not enough to realize how much of a dick he is. >
  
  As a child (white girl), I remember being all over my neighborhood—especially cutting through back yards and jumping fences to short-cut to friends’ houses. (And I was never doing anything remotely scholarly for my age while roaming about). I never had to worry about being in danger, and I was technically trespassing!
  I’m really glad that the Yale community/School of Public Health supported Bobbi in her interest, and helped further expose the reality of how Black children are often unfairly perceived. It makes me both happy and sad at the same time to see her face. >
  
  Growing up, all the neighborhood kids knew which properties connected, where trails were, which fences could be jumped, which yard had dogs, etc. >
  
  Imagine calling the police over a 9 year old girl looking for bugs. Some people are just terrible. >
  
  
  Bobbi, who is Black, unwittingly touched off a national discussion about the sometimes mortal danger associated with racial profiling on 22 October, when a neighbor called the police on her 
  
  What does this say about the state of policing in the US when calling them potentially puts a child in mortal danger. Police are supposed to be the safe haven, not the danger. >
  
  The guy who called the police on her is a well-known Republican figure in that specific community and he referred to a child as a "tiny black young lady" >
  
  IIRC, it was "Little Black Woman". >
  
  Of course. He knew that referring to her as an adult would be likelier to bring police and make the situation more dangerous for her. >
  
  Exactly.  That 9-year-old had been his neighbor for eight years. It defies credulity that he did not recognize her. >
  
  He definitely knew her he just hoping they’d do what cops do and show up guns blazing to protect his neighborhood from the scary Black people >
  
  I believe that.  He looks like he might be part of that generation that didn't want blacks in "his" neighborhood. >
  
  Little Black Woman is quite an odd combination of words.. makes me feel like they went out of their way to not acknowledge she’s a child. >
  
  That's exactly what that racist piece of shit did >
  
  A 9 year old girl! Jesus fucking christ!
  I think it's telling too that the caller remarked that she was a "little black woman" They'll not even let black people be children, let alone given the dignity of being a fucking human being. >
  
  Guy is a real piece of shit >
  
  “Wrongly reported” is such an asshole way to say “Reported by racist”. >
  
  
  “I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. Scares me, though.”
  
  Ugh.  This says so much about the person who "reported" her.  The amount you can infer from that one quote really shouldn't be THAT obvious. >
  
  By including the word “black” in the neighbors complaint, I feel they intentionally wanted the police to get there faster and to already judge the girl as guilty before arriving. >
  
  And “woman”. Little Black “woman”. If you’re close enough to see she’s little, you’re close enough to see that she’s a fucking CHILD. >
  
  I’m sure of it. They knew if they said “child” that the police wouldn’t take them seriously. They wanted the police to think a crazy black woman was spraying poison around the neighborhood. >
  
  As a guy living in New Jersey, she was doing a service trying to kill those goddamn lantern flies.  Invasive bastards (also fuck that person who called the cops on her) >
  
  "Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she's white. The defense rests your honor." >
  
  Fun fact: in the book, it was a juror, not Jake, who gave that speech (during deliberations) and convinced the remaining holdouts to change their votes. >
  
  That little girl is going to do amazing things. You can just tell. >
  
  She’s looking to eradicate lantern flies? She is literally my hero then, those bugs are the worst. >
  
  Right?!?  You can just look at her and tell she’s a little genius. There’s nothing more adorable than nerdy kids lol >
  
  POS said there's a tiny black woman spraying something on the trees I'm scared. Didn't call her a child. Thought he saw a fucking black leprechaun or something lmao >
  
  “There’s a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees,” the caller told police, CNN reported. “I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. Scares me, though.”
  A little black woman? Do you mean a child Ma’am? A young child? >
  
  No I mean a modified M1A1 abrams main battle tank with a prototype anti drone defence mechanism, mobile cyber warfare suite and revolutionary railgun. 
  Uh >
  
  There’s research showing that white people think Black children are older and “less innocent” than they actually are: article. >
  
  Adultification. So fucked up.
  Like the video I saw once with a cop screaming at a little Black girl saying "you're behaving like a child" and the girl says "I AM A CHILD" Wtf >
  
  The shitty part is that these kids *have* to "grow up" because they are literally one nosey-neighbor's phone call away from having police pointing a gun at them.
  I've heard from POC friends that they had very lengthy discussions with their parents regarding racism and the police from a young age, because its more dangerous for them to not have that discussion. Heavy hitting, dark topics like that are sure to make a kid grow up a bit faster.
  They don't even have the option of behaving like children. >
  
  It’s disgusting a little girl would have the police called on her like that.  What’s even more scary is the level of fear people have in order to call the police on a 9yo for spraying plants and the sidewalk with a pesticide…how much Fox News does someone have to watch to get like that? What happened to just engaging in a conversation?  Ask questions without being offensive or entitled and you may have a friendly exchange of ideas where you learn something. >
  
  The caller apparently said and quote, "theres a little black girl walking around spraying something on plants and stuff I dunno but it scares me".......imagine a world where someone is scared of a little 8 year old girl.  They might have just walked out and talked to her like a normal human. What kind of person calls the police on a little girl? >
  
  I remember the day my coworker got embarrassed by the police showing up to our office. He is a mechanical engineer like myself and an ex football player in college - big guy. They came in and arrested him for armed robbery, when this guy was just a big teddy bear. He was black and looked absolutely nothing like the guy who committed the crime - probably 80 lbs lighter, 10 shades darker, and certainly didn't have glasses like my coworker. 
  He was jailed for weeks until they figured it out. He's no longer with our company, and he didn't really talk about it. I'll never know what that's like. This bullshit needs to stop. I hope he got a big payout from the city. >
  
  They don't even bother to try. It's terrorism. >
  
  “There’s a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees,” the caller told police, CNN reported. “I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. Scares me, though.”
  Seriously what the fuck.   Scared of a little girl with a spray can!  The horror! >
  
  I’d be worried if I had a neighbor that could look at my nine year old daughter and describe her as a “woman”. It sounds like the thinking of a closeted pedophile. >
  
  The caller was a Karen/Kyle obviously. Lots of white people dont see black people as humans, and when they see one, even a child they are scared to death. >
  
  FYi I am a six foot tall black woman with  powerful contralto. And engineering degrees from the best schools.. From my earliest days I have walked carefully not trying to scare the white folk. I had to teach my nephew to do the same.
  Despite my best efforts i am still called intimidating and pushy. 
  It is exhausting.  
  I look at white women who get to cry and carryon in public with total amazement at their lack of emotional control. What must it feel like to be free l to scream and cry and fly off the handle when provoked? >
  
  Imagine seeing a kid looking for bugs and thinking, "yeah, this requires police action." >
  
  The 911 callers name should be put on blast too. There needs to be repercussions for calls to the police  just because they see a POC. Especially a fucking child. It’s not like she was brandishing a weapon. >
  
  "There's a little black woman spraying trees ..."
  GIRL. She is a child. Perfect example of adultification of Black girls >
  
  Yale honors Bobbi Wilson, 9, wrongly reported to police for existing >
  
  The caller must be made to feel like a piece of shit for the rest of their life. >
  
  They'll just bask in the feeling of being a victim of liberal cancel culture.
  Only reason he isn't a headline speaker at CPAC is because he didn't shoot her himself and hoped he could get the police to do it instead. >
  
  He's already a republican politician >
  
  Why did the police even respond to this?
  The emergency operator probably would not have tasked police in this instance and left it to community policing to investigate later. >
  
  “There’s a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees,” the caller told police, CNN reported. “I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. Scares me, though.”
  He called her an adult. A black one at that. 
  I was talking to dispatch for over 10 minutes to convince them to bring a cop over, to have an elderly man off our property because he was holding us hostage when I worked at a repair shop. 
  "He's old. What could he do ?"
  This is the South, he's off his meds, he's pissed that we wouldn't replace 8 tires for free because he lied to a guy about payment that worked on his yard which lead the guy to slash all his tires on both vehicles. I was not taking that chance. I finally told dispatch unless you want my coworker to handle it, he will gladly defend us with his gun.
  Found out the next day, old dude had a gun in his car. >
  
  A man tried to get into my apartment at 5 am when I was home alone (I’m a woman whose partner works nights, which shouldn’t matter or be relevant to the story but of course it is). I called 911 terrified as he pounded on the door and yelled at me to “fucking open up or I’m going to bust it down, you c&@t!”
  She heard him yell that on the other end of the phone. 
  My voice was shaking and I was cowering in the furthest corner from that door with a freaked out cat in my arms and the dispatcher goes, 
  “So… like… do you want us to send someone or what?” 
  …. Fucking what?!?! Did she think I was calling for emotional support? The fucked up thing is I actually felt stupid for calling for a second. If this doesn’t constitute an emergency for them, what would? I guess the knife would have to be sticking out of me (far enough in that it should be able to stand on its own) before they’d maybe think about doing something???
  Turns out he had just gotten out of jail a week or two before after 17 years for being a serial rapist. 
  I’ll never forget how apathetic and annoyed the dispatcher was with me, honestly that was more traumatizing than the actual attempted break-in/rape/murder/whatever his intentions were. >
  
  Yo, WHAT?! 
  I'm a smartass and you read how I talked to dispatch. I would've seriously told them, "If anything happens to me, this will be all on you. If I don't survive ,this recording will get out and you won't have a job anymore. So unless you want work another day ,you will bring someone here, NOW."
  I sure as hell would report that shit. I'm sorry you went through that. >
  
  Thank you for saying so, seriously. Ever since it happened I find myself sometimes questioning whether I was right to call and bother them or whatever but then I’ll check myself and be like what no that’s insane what do you mean you feel bad for bothering them and it’s just nice to see people agree that the whole world seems to be going crazy. >
  
  You're welcome! >
  
  
  “There’s a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees,” the caller told police, CNN reported. “I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. Scares me, though."
  
  People really are pathetic. >
  
  I'm just done with this, I teach elementary at an all black school and this shit is just disgusting, who the fuck calls 911 over a little girl catching insects in their yard? How the fuck where they do terrified of a 9 year old black girl that they didn't just step outside and talk to her? I always knew and warned the boys come 5th grade that they were bigger now and that there's a lot of bad people out there who aren't going to look at them as a kid anymore that they could be seen as an adult now even if it's not true or fair. I always at least felt a little better knowing the girls had some time and safety for a while, they wouldn't be really viewed as an adult till at least 7th-8th grade (which is still wrong but it's something) but now there's this shit, no amount of awards, recognition or anything like that is going to make this okay. Everyone knows this needs to stop, the police are just way to trigger happy and no amount of training is going to fix it, this shit has to be fundamentally retooled and funds shifted from police to social services and fixing things in underserved communities. It's no mystery why people commit crimes, the vast majority of crimes are either petty disputes turned violent, property crime due to desperation via poverty or "drug crime" which often is just people trying to get out of poverty or maintain an addiction, everyone's laid out the problems, the solutions, they have written the academic papers, people have gone out on the streets but I am really starting to think it's never going to fucking change, way to many people are okay with this >
  
  "She’s one of us and we’re not going to let her lose her steam." This more than anything should be the result of her hard work. Positive reinforcement. >
  
  A reasonable person would have gone out and asked her about it. 
  The main reason would be to check to make sure she wasn't fooling around with potentially toxic chemicals. >
  
  
  Black and Hispanic children are significantly more likely to be shot to death by police than their white counterparts
  
  The fuck is wrong with you Americans >
  
  Neighbor called police on someone they deemed a “suspicious person”. What about a little 9 yo girl is suspicious and deems calling the police? People are so fucked up >
  
  oh - pretty sure cause 85%+ demographics are "white" in dear, dear Caldwell.  & even though there are "poor people" there - oh - i'm ever so sure that basically 85% of those "those people" aren't >
  
  “There’s a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees,” the caller told police, CNN reported. “I don’t know what the hell she’s doing. Scares me, though.”
  This person was supposedly scared of a 9 year old girl… >
  
  I think he was a retired councilman! Gordon Lawshe. >
  
  It's a shame the article doesn't outline the cops response when he showed up. He was very calm and immediately noticed his services had been used to try and scare these people. His conversation with the mother was very telling that he understood the caller was the problem.
  I'm all about police reform, but that's a two way street. It does no good when the media ignores the few who get it right. >
  
  I think folks like myself would be happier knowing he got a charge for using the cops to scare and possibly harm a child. Also I'm not entirely sure a cop doing his job is newsworthy, but I do understand where you're coming from. People need to see positive interactions because for some folks who doom scroll all day, they will get an unrealistic and sensationalized perspective of what is going on around them. Such as the idea that every cop is out to get them or take advantage of their power. Its some we all need to keep an eye on for our own worldview. 
  You see this happen with folks who watch the news all day (I got one in my family). >
  
  Conservative and racist, name a more iconic duo >
  
  You only named one group though. >
  
  Can’t spell Conservative without racist. >
  
  onevve
  Yup, checks out. >
  
  Imagine how many times this might happen to her before her entire dream of being a scientist might be shattered. I would be terrified to do anything after this. I would be scared. And worse having such a negative experience attached to something I thought was good. This is one of the reasons I never did anything involving door to door things as a kid. This act by Yale is really meaningful and important and I can't thank them enough for standing by her in a big public way.