Mayor Bill de Blasio said: This is racism. Plain and simple. It would be horrific at any age, but it s especially offensive that it happened to a child, he said in a tweet.
Prosecutors in Manhattan are now investigating the incident.
In a statement, the parents of Keyon Harrold Jr and civil rights lawyer Ben Crump called on the Manhattan district attorney to bring assault and battery charges against the woman to send the message that hateful, racially motivated behaviour is unacceptable .
They also called for a civil rights investigation into the Arlo SoHo Hotel for its implicit bias in the way it treated Kenyon.
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On Saturday, a white woman frantically accused a Black teen of stealing her iPhone at a New York City hotel, only to discover moments later that it was left behind in an Uber.
The teen is the son of Grammy-award winning trumpet player
Keyon Harrold, who captured the incident of the woman apparently lunging at him and his son on video.
In the video, posted on Harrold’s Instagram page, the unidentified woman is seen telling the hotel manager that the 14-year-old had taken her phone. As the teenager said, “this is my phone,” Harrold intervened, telling him: “You don’t have to explain nothing to her.”