Alison Ettel, Who Allegedly Called Cops On Black Girl, Denies Being Racist

A video of a white woman calling cops on an 8-year-old black girl who was selling water on San Francisco street went viral Saturday.

The video posted by the girl’s mother on Instagram was captioned: “An 8-year-old selling water in front of her apartment building where she’s lived her whole life is NOT a reason to call the police.”

In the video, the woman, identified as Alison Ettel, is seen making a phone call and then can be heard saying "illegally selling water without a permit."

The woman then turns around, looks at the camera and then ducks behind a retaining wall.

“You can hide all you want,” Erin Austin, mother of the young girl, can be heard saying. "The whole world gonna see you, boo.”

Austin then says the girl was selling water on her property to which the woman reacts “it’s not your property.” The child's mother said the woman demanded to see her daughter's permit for selling water while they were standing right in front of their apartment around 6 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Fox KTVU reported.

Ettel told the Huffington Post she was only pretending to call the cops and there was no racial discrimination component to it. She also added the incident left her feeling horrible and heart-wrenched because the girl’s mother started yelling at her.

Ettel said she asked the building security to intervene but to no avail.

“They were screaming about what they were selling,” Ettel said. “It was literally nonstop. It was every two seconds, ‘Come and buy my water.’ It was continuous and it wasn’t a soft voice, it was screaming.”

She said she had left the windows of her office open as it was very hot and closing it would not have stopped the noise.

“It was two o’ clock in the afternoon and it was constant screaming and yelling, I was completely stressed out at work and that’s not an excuse,” Ettel told Infosurhoy. “I had been putting up with this for hours, and I just snapped.”

“I have no problem with enterprising young women. I want to support that little girl. It was all the mother and just about being quiet,” Ettel added.

After the video went viral, she was given the name “Permit Patty” by social media.

“I completely regret that I handled that so poorly. It was completely stress-related, and I should have never confronted her. That was a mistake, a complete mistake. Please don’t make me sound horrible,” she said, adding she has been receiving threats online and also texts with sexually violent messages.

“It was wrong and I wish I could take it back. Believe me, I wish I never had done that,” she said.

“She can come to my city and sell water any time. We think it’s silly to require minors to have permits for selling water or lemonade or even cutting grass. We want our children to learn value of hard work and a dollar. And we won’t let morons harass her,” Andrew H. Scott, Mayor of Coal Run tweeted.