A crying child begged his father not to call the police on a black man waiting for his friend at an apartment building in San Francisco, in a video that has been viewed more than 1.3m times.
Wesly Michel, 35, recorded his encounter with the pair, with the white father calling Mr Michel a “trespasser” in the building he had walked in to as he walked out.
As the pair talk, the child can be heard telling his father: “Dad, don’t. Please go." The boy says: “Daddy go. It’s the better; I agree with him, daddy.”
The boy begins to cry as his father describes Mr Michel, a software engineer, to police. “Daddy, I don’t like this. Let’s go,” he says.
The man had said Mr Michel should get his friend to come down and collect him using the call box, while Mr Michel says that the father would be the “next person on TV”.
That was likely a reference to a number of stories in recent months where white people have called the police on black people doing seemingly innocuousactivities.
“Listen to your son, walk away,” Mr Michel says. “I will stop this. I will stop the recording.”
Mr Michel’s friend appears to come from outside the building, with the child pleading for himself and his father to leave.
“Told you. Let’s go now,” the young boy says and begins pulling the adult. “Daddy, look what you’ve gotten us into. Let’s go!”
The man asks for confirmation that the resident is Mr Michel’s friend and ends his call with police after saying that Mr Michel is “actually here with a resident”.
Still recording, Mr Michel says that the man is now “online forever”.
In a statement to CNN Mr Michel said that incident on 4 July “mirrors the experience that African-Americans endure daily where we are questioned on whether we belong”.
“I videotaped this incident to protect myself and to support my story should police get involved,” he added.
Mr Michel said that “ultimately everyone wants to be seen for who they are and not prejudged”.
