*Hilary Brooke Thornton was fired from her job after a video of her blocking a black man from entering his own apartment building went viral.
D’Arreion Nuriyah Toles recorded the moment he returned home from work and encountered another tenant at the front door of his St. Louis loft building. Cellphone video of the incident shows the white woman standing directly in front of the door, blocking him from entering.
“Please move, ma’am,” Toles says, and Thornton responds: “I can…do you live here?”
Thornton tells Toles that she needs to know what unit he lives in but he refuses to give her the information. They go back and forth for three minutes in the video. He continues to ask the woman to move but she refuses.
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“You are blocking me into my building,” he said. “This is my building as well. So, I need you to get out of my way.”
She then follows Toles to his apartment door and he wrote in a Facebook post that Thornton called the police after he entered his apartment. Officers showed up but left shortly after without issuing any citations.
Toles’ videos have since been viewed more than 1 million times and he told KMOV4 that he appreciates the “love and support” but hopes the public doesn’t harass Thornton.
“Don’t respond negatively. Don’t go after the lady. Let her be at peace. Let her live her life,” he said. “…I am not mad at her. I am not upset with her. I am not going to go after her legally or anything like that. I wish her the best. I would still have a conversation with her.”
Toles added: “I am just glad I had my camera out,” he said. “If I did not have my camera out, I feel it could have gone a totally different way.”
Meanwhile, by Monday, Mueller’s employer, Tribeca STL, a luxury apartment company, said it decided to fire her after seeing the video.
“The Tribeca-STL family is a minority-owned company that consists of employees and residents from many racial backgrounds. We are proud of this fact and do not and never will stand for racism or racial profiling at our company,” the company said in a statement.
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