Woman Blocks Black Resident From Apartment, Gets Fired: Video

ST. LOUIS, MO — A woman who tried to block a fellow resident from entering his downtown apartment building late Friday night has been fired after video of the incident was shared widely on Facebook over the weekend. The video shows the woman, who is white, telling an African-American man, D'Arreion Nuriyah Toles, that she's uncomfortable letting him into the luxury Elder Shirt Lofts building and blocking him from stepping through the door.

The woman, whose name was not released, is a property manager for another apartment building, Tribeca-STL, located in St. Louis' Central West End, according to a statement from that company announcing her firing on Sunday.

"The Tribeca-STL family is a minority-owned company that consists of employees and residents from many racial backgrounds. We are proud of this fact and do not and never will stand for racism or racial profiling at our company," Tribeca-STL said in a statement.

"After a review of the matter the employee has been terminated and is no longer with our Company. At Tribeca-STL we want all residents, guests and visitors to feel welcome, safe and respected."

(For more stories like this, subscribe to Patch for daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. You can also download the free Patch app for iPhone and Android.)

In the video posted by Toles to Facebook, which now has more than 50,000 likes and has been shared almost 119,000 times, the woman repeatedly asks Toles if he lives in the building. He tells her that he does, but refuses to tell her which unit he lives in. He also refuses to show her his key fob, but it is nonetheless clearly visible in the video.

Watch the video here:

"I understand, ma'am, but you're blocking me," Toles tells her.

"Into my building," the woman responds.

"It's my building as well," Toles says, "so I need you to get out of my way."

"Okay, what unit?" the woman demands.

"I don't need to tell you that information, so excuse me, ma'am."

"I'm uncomfortable," she tells Toles.

"Okay, you can be uncomfortable," he says. "You're uncomfortable because of you. I need you to move out of my way, please."

Eventually, Toles pushes past the woman. "Are you kidding me?" she says, to which he responds: "Call the police, whatever you want to do." (Spoiler: she does.)

After also trying to prevent Toles from using the elevator, the woman follows him to his apartment door. Apparently still unwilling to believe he lives there, she tells him she's following him "because I would like to know whose friends — and why you're here."

"Have a good night, ma'am. Don't ever do that again," Toles tells her as he unlocks his door and steps into his apartment.

Thirty minutes later, Toles said the police showed up at his door, but left without incident.

"I was shocked," he wrote on Facebook later that night. "This is America in 2018!"

Toles said he's thankful for his forethought to film the encounter. "I am just glad I had my camera out. If I did not have my camera out, I feel it could have gone a totally different way," he told News 4.

On Sunday, Toles told Real STL News that if faced with the same situation again, he would handle it the same way. If he'd gotten angrier, he said, he'd probably be in jail or worse.

"We see what happened in Dallas, let's be real," he said, adding he doesn't think being more accommodating would have worked either.

"The camera, to me, as a black man in the world, it's my protection," he said.

Watch the Real STL News interview here:

Image via Google Maps