He allegedly referred to them as “savages” who hang out in “Section 8 housing”, threatened them with an air rifle— and called the cops on them. An upstate New York business owner who called the cops on BLM protesters—after he allegedly hurled racial epithets and threatened them with an air rifle—will be the first person charged under a new law that makes it a crime to weaponize police against Black people. A lawsuit filed by the state’s high-profile attorney general, Letitia James, alleges that David Elmendorf, the former owner of Bumpy Freeze in Schenectady, threatened to harm peaceful demonstrators who protested outside his ice cream shop last June during the nationwide outrage over the police killing of George Floyd. Elmendorf has been charged with a number of hate crimes related to the standoff, most notably for telling local authorities that demonstrators were armed and threatened to kill him. In reality, he was the one who allegedly threatened to shoot a group of more than 50 protestors with a .22-caliber rifle and run them over with his truck, all while hurling racist epithets, the state’s lawsuit alleges. This marks the first time the state is enforcing a law passed by the Legislature giving the AG the authority to bring charges against a person who files a false police report with the intent of getting someone in trouble on the basis of their race. The provision was introduced following the high-profile encounter between Christian Cooper, a Black birdwatcher, and Amy Cooper, a white woman, in Central Park last year. The encounter, in which Amy Cooper threatened to call the police on Christian Cooper after he asked her to keep her dog on a leash, received national attention and became a prime example of how emergency services could be weaponized against Black people.
via vice: This Shop Owner Allegedly Lied About Being Threatened by BLM. He’s Now Facing a Hate Crime.