"Four plainclothes cops accused a black woman of credit card fraud after the Brooklyn mom bought a $2,500 designer bag from Barneys — stoking a fresh round of outrage against the high-end store.
Kayla Phillips, 21, a nursing student from Canarsie, told the Daily News she had long coveted the orange suede Céline bag. Armed with a cash infusion from a tax return, she took her Bank of America debit card and headed to the Madison Ave. flagship store on Feb. 28.
Phillips made the purchase without incident but says she was surrounded by cops just three blocks away, at the Lexington Ave. and 59th St. subway station.
“There were three men and a woman,” she recalled. “Two of them attacked me and pushed me against a wall, and the other two appeared in front of me, blocking the turnstile.”
The cops started peppering her with questions and demanding to see her ID.
They were very rough,” said Phillips, who has filed a $5 million notice of claim with the city of her intention to sue the NYPD. “They kept asking me what I bought and saying, ‘Show us your card.’ I didn’t know what was happening.”
RELATED: HAMILL: IT'S BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR BARNEYS TO RACIALLY PROFILE
Phillips’ attorney, Kareem Vessup, says an additional civil rights lawsuit against the NYPD and Barneys is pending.
The 5 p.m. confrontation was eerily similar to a clash between cops and 19-year-old Trayon Christian, who filed a discrimination suit this week accusing Barneys and the NYPD of racially profiling him. Christian, who is black, alleged he was followed into the street by undercover cops and accused of fraud after he used his debit card to buy a $349 Ferragamo belt at Barneys on April 29.
The young Queens man was cuffed and taken to the 19th Precinct stationhouse, but released with no charges, his discrimination suit said. [Source]
Now don't get it twisted, I do not in any way condone this young lady dropping $2,500 on a handbag. I get the love some women have for a nice handbag (I see you Mrs. Field), but unless you have Oprah money, $2,500 is a bit much. In my very humble opinion.
Still, having said that, the decision by this young lady (and the young man who purchased the belt) should be questioned by her family and her conscience. It's not up to overzealous "color aroused" police officers and snooty store executives to decide if and how these young people should spend their money.
Finally, I am going to keep it real with you, I have no patience for my political enemies. If I were king they would all be first against the wall.
My loathing for right winnguts and their ilk is well documented.
That being said, I am not an elected politician, so I can get away with not showing love to those who sit on a different ideological fence. Politicians do not have that luxury; they have to at least pretend to like everybody.
This is what makes this latest story out of D.C. so interesting.
It involves claims that a politician from Texas came even closer to doing what we all have been predicting will happen one day. (If it didn't already.)
The problem is, of course, like everything else in Washington, the facts are a little murky.
"Senator Durbin stands by his comments," Durbin communications director Max Gleischman said in a statement a short time ago.
It's the latest surprise twist in a he-said/he-said spat that's been going on all day.
The Internet was abuzz this morning with a startling report from Durbin, the Illinois Democrat and second-ranking member of the Senate, who made the allegation on his Facebook page.
“Many Republicans searching for something to say in defense of the disastrous shutdown strategy will say President Obama just doesn't try hard enough to communicate with Republicans,” Durbin wrote. “But in a `negotiation' meeting with the president, one GOP House Leader told the president: 'I cannot even stand to look at you.'
“What are the chances of an honest conversation with someone who has just said something so disrespectful?”
It was a devastating tidbit, one that seemed to confirm a core Democratic narrative about Republican lack of civility toward Obama. Major online media sites and Twitter spread it far and wide. Progressive bloggers pounced.
But then, in just about the only twist that could be more startling than the original allegation, White House spokesman Jay Carney, when questioned about the alleged comment later in the day, said flatly that it never happened. [Source]
Hmmm, I sure hope that O isn't covering for his political foes.
*
"Oh come on Field, why the hyperbole? 'color coordinated hoods'?
Yes. And why is this such a stretch?
Consider the latest Southern republican tea party candidate to come off that good ole boy assembly line.
"Tea party candidate for U.S. Senate Chris McDaniel hopes to unseat current Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran (R) in the 2014 election. According to Mother Jones magazine, McDaniel addressed a neo-Confederate ball two months ago alongside speakers who called President Abraham Lincoln a “Marxist” and alleged that the “Birther” argument about the birthplace of President Barack Obama “hasn’t really been solved.”
In spite of the tea party’s historic unpopularity with the public at large, McDaniel is hoping to topple Cochran by attacking him as insufficiently loyal to the conservative cause and the values espoused by the tea party.
Cochran has received support from Washington think tank The Club for Growth and an endorsement from the Senate Conservatives Fund, a political action committee headed by Republican Senator turned Heritage Foundation director Jim DeMint (SC). Mother Jones‘ Tim Murphy marveled that the tea party is embracing a man who has advocated for secession and who consorts with groups and individuals who still maintain that the Confederates should have won the U.S. Civil War." [More]
Nope, not a stretch at all.
* Pic from The Grio
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