A youth soccer league official in Florida somehow felt threatened by a Black dad yelling instructions to his son on the field and ended up calling the police. White soccer moms—many of them known for being belligerent at matches—have behaved a lot worse and not gotten interrogated by the cops.
The police encounter was caught on cellphone video, and the soccer official was dubbed “Golf Cart Gail” by a parent who witnessed the whole thing, ABC News reported on Tuesday.
Ultimately, the two St. Johns County sheriff’s deputies decided not to cite the father, though it was unclear what charge would have been applicable.
This unnecessary situation happened against the backdrop of an Oklahoma soccer referee who got so fed up with angry parents in July that he posted videos on social media to shame them. Notice what he didn’t do: Call the cops.
The unidentified father in Florida explained to the deputies that the official mistakenly thought he was yelling at the referee.
“They had a bad call with my son and … I said, ‘Hey, the ref was right.’ She thought I was yelling at the ref. So, she came over and I was like, ‘No ma’am, I was yelling at my son. Nobody else,’” the father stated.
A witness, Ginger Williams, who is white, recorded the police encounter and posted it to Facebook under the headline, “Soccer while black.” She didn’t know the father before the incident but felt that she couldn’t remain silent given the wave of similar incidents.
“I just want to make sure this man is safe, period. I don’t understand why this woman felt the need to call the police on this man,” Williams told the cops.
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Cops Called On Black Man Doing Something White Soccer Moms Do Freely was originally published on newsone.com
