A video involving two women at a gas station, made uncomfortable by a male stranger and then a McComb County Sheriff police officer in a confrontation, has resurfaced via Reddit on Monday.
The video, shared to r/PublicFreakout, appears to be a TikTok video shot in pre-pandemic times. The title given to the video on the subreddit, “No subtle racism to be seen,” speaks to its relevance and why it’s resurfaced.
Macomb County is part of the Detroit metro area. According to 2018 demographic statistics from Data USA, the county is 78.5% white and 12% black.
The video, shot at what appears to be a Mobil gas station, starts with the women capturing video of a police officer. Then, a white middle-aged man pops into the video, very close to their car. One of the women asks, “What are you so close to the car for? Can you not be on our vehicle?”
Throughout the video, there’s text narrative appearing at points to provide commentary on what’s happening. The video starts with a title, “Two Young Women vs. Two Old Men.” Its opening few seconds explains, from the women’s perspectives, what’s happening: “This officer and this random man were harassing us. When I tried to record the cop, the man tried to block my camera with his BIG BODY A**.”
The women then address the man, saying, “We don’t know you,” and the man says, “Well, good. We don’t know you either.”
By “we,” the man appears to be referring to himself and the officer The next phase of the video shows the women they’re on public property, and that he’s too close to their car, as the police officer pulls his car—clearly a Macomb County Sheriff’s vehicle—closer to theirs.
There’s also a text narrative overlaid on this part of the video, explaining that the police officer “waved to us to get our attention and said we need to turn our music down because he’s ‘trying to have a conversation.'”
The text narrative then asserts they turned their music down and asked the police officer, “You’re telling us to turn down our music because you’re trying to talk?”
The women then have the conversation described in the text, then let the police officer know they’re bothered by the man’s presence. “I don’t know you, and you don’t need to be near my car,” one of the women says to the man in the presence of the officer. “I don’t know you, and I feel threatened, so please back up.”
The man, who is carrying a folding step stool, says, “Oh, pssh,” in response while the woman insists he back up.
“I mean, you’ve got a big old thing right there,” she adds, focusing the video on the step stool in his hands.
The text overlay, in this segment of the video, conveys that the police officer “caught attitude” and pulled behind their car to run their license plate numbers. It goes on to surmise, “Thank God we had insurance and everything because this ‘officer’ had spite in mind.”
The woman then says to the officer, “We know what you’re capable of. I mean, you just turned around to run her plates.”