Video taken at a Minnesota public park this week shows a white woman apparently admitting she used a racist slur against a Black youth she accused of taking an item that belongs to her child.
The man who recorded the video, Sharmake Omar, 30, said in an interview Friday that the 5-year-old child was called the N-word by the woman Monday.
“The Rochester Police Department is aware of the video that was posted on social media and has received multiple calls related to it,” it said Friday. “We are gathering information and actively looking into the matter.”
Omar said that when he saw the woman berating the child of Somali heritage, a background he shares, he intervened and she turned her apparent anger on him, using the slur repeatedly, which was captured on the video.
In the video, verified by NBC News, the woman, apparently carrying her child away, answered, “Yeah” when asked if she called the youth the slur.
“He took my son’s stuff,” she said.
Omar asks if “digging” through her child’s belongings at the park, which is what the mother said the boy had done, would justify using the racist word against a child.
The woman responded, “If that’s what he’s going to act like,” the video shows.
On that video, and in Friday’s interview, Omar said the child has autism spectrum disorder. He said that he knows the boy’s parents, who he said are from Somalia, and that they were also supervising their three other children at the park.
The parents, he said, have expressed support for prosecuting the woman, if possible.
“That little boy … was visibly upset by the incident,” Omar said.
Omar said that when he intervened, the woman, whom he had never met before, also told him he and his wife shouldn’t have more children because they are a drain on the welfare system.
Minnesota has a long history of supporting and resettling international refugees accepted by the United States.
The office of Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, in 2023 estimated the number of people in the state who have Somali heritage at more than 86,000. On Thursday, Rochester’s congressional delegation issued a joint statement commending Omar for “standing up and protecting one of our youngest community members” and condemning “these vile acts of racism” he has described.
Also on Thursday, the NAACP Rochester Branch said in a statement that it “stands in solidarity with the impacted child” and called on police, the Rochester city attorney and the Olmsted County Attorney’s Office to investigate and charge the woman in the video, suggesting her interaction with the boy may have been a hate crime.
The Rochester Branch said the Monday incident was one of multiple recent examples of “a disturbing increase in racially motivated acts” in the city of more than 122,000, perhaps best known for being home of the Mayo Clinic and its world-renowned hospital and research.
“What happened at the park is yet another painful reminder that hate continues to exist,” it said in its statement.
Protesters are expected to gather Monday for a Protect Our Children: Arrest & Charge event organized by Rochester Action People’s Community.
Minnesota law defines one type of assault as an action taken with “intent to cause fear.” Separately, it states that a hate crime has taken place when someone is assaulted “because of the victim’s actual or perceived race,” a misdemeanor.
Attempts to contact the woman in the video, verify her name, and speak to a family member have so far been unsuccessful.
Austin Mullen and Caroline Radnofsky contributed.
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