After days of overwhelming media attention and neighborhood tension, Jeremiah Harvey, the child at the center of the “Cornerstore Caroline” saga, went public and spoke out during a community meeting Monday held in front of the Brooklyn bodega where the drama began.
More than 60 people showed up for the event, which was organized by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. "Our goal is to hear your voices and let everyone know what's happening," he said at the start. Well over a dozen people were given the chance to speak, including kids from Jeremiah's school.
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(A)lmost everybody expressed empathy for and anger on behalf of Jeremiah, the boy caught in the middle of everything. One of Jeremiah's peers named Jordan said, "I don't know why she thought a 9-year-old could harm her."
Cornerstore Caroline, otherwise known as 53-year-old Teresa Sue Klein, went viral last week after accosting Jeremiah and his family at the Sahara Deli in Flatbush. Klein (falsely) accused Jeremiah of grabbing her butt. The intense video, shot by neighbor Jason Littlejohn and uploaded to Facebook, shows Klein screaming into her cellphone about being sexually assaulted. Klein, who is white, also confronts well-meaning bystanders who attempt to get between her and the black family of three. All the while, Jeremiah and his little sister can be heard wailing in anguish and fear, and seen clutching their mother, now identified as Someko Bellille.
Two days after the incident at the bodega, Klein returned to the corner store, and while neighborhood residents and media watched, she viewed the shop’s surveillance tape and realized that the child she accosted hadn’t “assaulted” her at all. Rather, his large blue backpack appears to have bumped her denim-clad behind as he left the store with his mother. Klein offered a mild apology to the cameras for treating Jeremiah like a modern-day Emmett Till, but insisted that she still wished to press charges against Jeremiah’s mother for being “aggressive.”
Klein, who has lived in Flatbush for four years, claims she has received an overwhelming amount of phone calls and threats since the incident. She also maintains the boy's mother claimed to be a cop and threatened her life, and she still would like to pursue charges.
"I called 911 because this woman was very aggressive," Klein said.
One look at either the surveillance video of the non-assault or the video of Klein’s behavior after the non-assault, and most people wouldn’t define Bellille as the “aggressive” one of the two women, but let’s move on.
When Jeremiah takes the microphone from his mother at the rally, his discomfort is palpable; for most of his speech, he keeps his eyes closed or aimed down at the ground. When he begins, addressing the “people of the world,” his words are so obviously those of a child forced to face a very adult situation.
“No one should be calling other people curse words and stuff like that, like poopy words, like foul language that people are not supposed to use.”
“Poopy words.” What an accurate, if childish, description of the bile flowing from Klein’s mouth that day. As Jeremiah continues to speak, emboldened by the encouragement of the loving crowd surrounding him, he digs deep and finds words that make him seem older than he is. He makes some beautiful points. Here are just a few.
Violence is not the answer to everything … it’s not the key. Friendship is really the key.
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Martin Luther King, Jr., brought whites and blacks together.
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God is trusting us on everything. Treat people the same way you want to be treated. Please, I’m begging all y’all, don’t do bad things.
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Violence should be off the charts, off our vocabulary.
Before handing the mic to her son, Bellille also makes some important points. Too often, in these viral videos of racists, the rush to shame the badly behaving bigot leaves the impact of their bad behavior unnoticed. Not so with Jeremiah and his family. The private discussions that are commonplace in black families have been brought into the spotlight in recent years, in particular the fact that “The Talk” that black parents have with their children is quite a different discussion than the ones that most white parents have with theirs. As our own Kelly Macías wrote in March:
While black parents previously considered having these conversations with their children in their adolescence, they are starting earlier and earlier out of fear that their children will be caught unaware and be harmed.
Bellille explains that the trauma inflicted on Jeremiah didn’t end after Jason Littlejohn stopped filming, and that her family’s Talk was forced to come earlier than planned.
That day, this fear was placed into my children’s hearts. Having to explain to your nine-year-old son what “assault” means, what “sexual assault” means, having to go over the term with him, what “racism” means? And having to witness and see that he’s crying all over again.
This right here was not your fault, Jeremiah.
Bellille also reminds folks to take a stand when they see such scenes on the street. You can watch mother and son speak at the rally in the video below.
Klein, in the meantime, has continued her own press junket, which already veered into the ridiculous last week. In a rambling interview with Gothamist ahead of Monday’s rally, Klein claimed she has filed complaints with NYPD, insisting that it was Bellille, not her, that impersonated a police officer.
Klein said she ended up going to the 70th Precinct and filing an "impersonating a police officer" complaint; she later filed an aggravated harassment complaint as well after receiving a death threat from a number she claims belongs to the boy's mother. (Gothamist called the number in question, and a man answered. He said he did not know the mother, but he did say, with a chuckle, that he had "a lot of opinions" about the viral video.)
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who put together Monday’s rally, commented on Klein’s accusation. Though Adams kept things vague, he implied that if, indeed, Bellille did flash a badge, as surveillance video seems to indicate, it wasn’t illegal.
When asked about Bellille allegedly flashing a badge, Adams said: "As the investigation goes its course, we're going to see that, based on what the mother's profession is, if she did—I don't know if she did—but if she did, she was in the right." Pressed on this, Adams wouldn't say what Bellille's job was: "I think that's part of the investigation. I don't know if doing that's going to tamper with the investigation. But I can tell you this: she did not do anything that was in violation of any rules or procedures. I know that for a fact. Now if the woman who was showing hostility, if she identified herself as a police officer or peace officer, she broke the law."
As mentioned earlier, Klein did rattle off a flat apology to Jeremiah on Friday, once she was confronted with the surveillance tape in front of neighbors and media. "Young man, I don't know your name, but I'm sorry," she said into the cameras.
Her apology appears to have made its way to Jeremiah’s ears. When asked about it by local media after Monday’s rally, the young man, who was forced to mature far beyond his nine years over the last week, was honest about how he feels.
“I don’t forgive this woman at all … and she needs help.”
Good for him for keeping it real. After all, he doesn’t owe Klein, a woman who shattered his innocence, and is still trying to cause trouble for his mother, anything—including his forgiveness.
Jeremiah’s story is just the latest example of how much progressive, diverse leadership is needed in our nation.
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