If you saw #PermitPatty trending this weekend, a viral video is the reason why.
A Bay Area woman, who is white, is seen on video allegedly calling police on an 8-year-old girl, who happens to be black.
Why?
Well, according to the video (which you can see below), and the little girl's mother, the girl was selling water in front of her home near AT&T park 'without a permit.'
Yep, you heard that right. How DARE she?! (That's sarcastic in case you didn't catch it)
The video shows the little girl's mother confronting the woman as she tries to hide. When the video was posted to Instagram and Twitter by the girl's mother and her cousin, they used the hashtag #PermitPatty.
Well, #PermitPatty caught on!
The video received more than 2.5 million views in just 24 hours, as it drew comparisons to another situation in the Bay Area from April where a white woman in Oakland called police on a black family having a BBQ in a park. That woman was dubbed #BBQBecky.
The Huffington Post spoke to the woman who called police, identified as Alison Ettel.
Ettel says because of the video, she's been harassed and threatened.
She claims she was only 'pretending' to call the police and only because the girl's mother was being too loud as she was trying to work nearby.
She said:
“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.
It was stupid. 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.”
The Huffington Post claims they reached out to the little girl's mother, but according to the mom's Instagram post last night, that's not the case.