'Cornerstore Caroline' Breaks Her Silence After Falsely Accusing Black Boy of Groping Her
A New York woman who falsely accused a 9-year-old boy of groping her in a bodega has offered an apology after viewing security video that shows he never touched her.
Theresa Klein, whose videotaped outburst quickly went viral, earned the nickname "Cornerstore Caroline" after causing a ruckus in Brooklyn.
"I want the cops here right now!" video shows her telling a 911 dispatcher outside a neighborhood market after she accused a child of sexual assault. "That's right," she says into the phone, "the son grabbed my a**!"
The boy, his mother and his sister were shopping in the store when the boy's backpack accidentally brushed the woman, surveillance footage later showed, as the trio left the store.
Neighbors came to the family's defense as a bystander began filming the woman, who is white, accusing the boy, who is black, of assaulting her. A child is heard crying in the background as the mother stands her ground, saying her son didn't do anything.
People gathered outside the bodega told the accuser to "go home."
But Klein didn't, and repeatedly asserted the child had grabbed her buttocks.
"What I felt was a whoosh, across both cheeks," she told Inside Edition. "I regret that I escalated the situation," she said. "I shouldn't have cursed."
After the video of the incident went viral, Klein posted a note on her apartment door that reads "Do Not Knock."
Over the weekend, another video out of St. Louis, this one depicting a white woman trying to keep a black man from entering his luxury apartment building, went crazy on social media.
"I live here. You're blocking the door," the man is heard telling the woman.
"What unit?" she asks.
"I don't need to tell you that. What unit do you live in?" he counters.
"Excuse me," he says as he finally pushes past her.
"No!" she yells at him.
The video, taken by D'Arreion Toles, shows Hilary Brooke Thornton getting on the elevator with him, demanding to know where he's going. She follows him to the door of his apartment.
He later told KMOV-TV: "I'm just glad I had my camera out, cause if I didn't, I feel it could have gone and entirely different way."
Thornton was subsequently fired from her job as a real estate agent after the video went viral on Facebook.
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