Scott Heins/Getty Images
- A 14-year-old Black teen was assaulted and wrongly accused of theft of a woman’s iPhone at a New York City hotel in late December.
- Keyon Harrold, the teen’s father and an award-winning jazz musician, told TMZ that his son is “seriously traumatized” by the incident that has been widely viewed on social media.
- The woman, who has been dubbed “Soho Karen,” was identified as 22-year-old Miya Ponsetto, according to the New York Post citing police.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
The father of the 14-year-old Black teen who was assaulted and wrongly accused of stealing a woman’s iPhone says his son is “seriously traumatized” by the incident.
Keyon Harrold, a notable Grammy award-winning jazz musician, told TMZ that he is considering therapists for his son, Keyon Jr., after their experience at a New York City hotel late last month. Harrold told New York The Times that the situation was possibly a racial profiling related incident.
A video that has nearly 3 million views on Instagram posted by Harrold shows a woman telling a manager of Arlo Hotel in SoHo that his son took her cellphone. Harrold said the woman, who was not even a guest at the hotel, tackled and grabbed Keyon Jr.
"The lady in this video assaulted my 14-year-old son and me as we came down from our room in the @arlohotels Arlo Soho to get breakfast," Harrold wrote in the caption. "This person quote on quote "lost" her iPhone, and apparently, my son magically acquired it, which merely ridiculous."
In the caption of the video, Harrold said the hotel manager advocated and "empowered" the woman telling his son to show her his phone.
He added that a few minutes later an Uber driver returned the woman her phone and both father and son did not receive an apology from her or the hotel. As Insider's Kelsey Vlamis reported, the hotel later apologized for the incident after the footage sparked outrage on social media stating that "more could have been done to deescalate the dispute."
"This could have gone very wrongly if I had come down after my son," Harrold told WABC-TV. "The idea of trauma goes above any charge that we may have...I bring my son places where he shouldn't have to deal with injustices and shouldn't have to be profiled."
The woman, who was later identified as 22-year-old Miya Ponsetto, according to the New York Post, told CNN that she worried about potential charges and how she was perceived in the viral video.
"Of course I worry. That's not who I am. I actually ... try very hard to make sure that I am always doing the right thing," Ponsetto told CNN also claiming that she was assaulted during the incident.
According to WABC-TV, police are looking into possible attempted robbery to assault charges against Ponsetto who hasn't been charged. Activists have said Ponsetto is a California resident and are calling for her arrest, WABC-TV reported.
National civil rights attorney, Ben Crump, and Harrold Jr.'s parents have called on Manhattan District attorney, Cy Vance, for charges against Ponsetto. NBC News reported that the Manhattan DA office is also investigating the incident.
—Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) December 30, 2020
"There are thousands of Black men in prison because they were racially profiled and falsely accused so this has larger implications. I mean it was Emmett Till who was falsely accused and racially profiled that led to him being lynched. And so, it is a larger conversation that has a larger impact on society," Crump said at a press conference in December.