A Tennessee woman has lost her job after calling the police on a black man who was wearing his socks in a community pool.
According to USA Today, Erica Walker, a property manager at a Memphis, Tennessee, housing community called the police on a black man, whose girlfriend lives in the same community, for violating the pool dress code.
The alleged incident occurred Wednesday and was documented on video by Camry Porter, the girlfriend who lives in the same community as Walker.
According to Porter, Walker approached Porter and her party — which included two godchildren as well as Porter's boyfriend — and identified herself as the property manager. She then told Porter's boyfriend that if he wanted to put his feet in the water, he'd have to remove his socks.
According to Porter, Walker said, “No socks, T-shirts, hats, or things of that nature are allowed in the pool.”
A Facebook video shared by Porter, which documents the incident, has reached more than 1 million views at the time of this writing.
Porter captioned the video, “I went to the pool in my apartments at about 12/1230 hours with my boyfriend and 2 god babies. When we walked into the main pool area we were the ONLY black family.... Cool. No problem. As I said, things like that have never phased me. While getting settled I noticed this woman constantly watching us and whispering among her friends, but AGAIN, I didn’t care.”
In the video, Porter can be heard pointing out other people in the pool who were in violation of the pool's dress code, including several white men who were wearing hats while in the water.
Porter says that she and her group were the only black people at the pool, and revealed that Walker said that the party would have to leave if they didn't adhere to the pool's dress code, despite Porter living in the community.
Porter said that she refused to leave, and that's when Walker phoned police.
She later wrote, "20 minutes later, a Memphis Police Officer show up... He listens to both sides. Y’all this woman says that I disturbed the peace and made a scene by recording her. She stated I DISTURBED THE PEACE!!? Y’all I was LIVID!!!! But I was even more HURT!"
On Thursday, the housing community shared a post about Walker's fate, writing, "Riverset Apartments takes Ms. Porter’s allegations very seriously. We do not support discrimination of any kind and are currently investigating this matter."
The page later issued an update which read, "UPDATE: After assessing statements from Ms. Porter and determining that this former employee’s actions violate our company’s policies and beliefs, she is no longer employed by Riverset Apartments."
Later that Thursday, the community issued another statement, reiterating that Walker was no longer employed at Riverset Apartments.
On Friday, the page issued another update, which read, "To confirm, Ms. Walker was terminated immediately after we completed our investigation yesterday afternoon. She will never be employed by Trilogy Residential Management, LLC or any of its properties in the future."
Porter spoke with WMAC-TV where she detailed her reaction at Walker's termination.
"It was a very embarrassing and very hurtful and horrible incident," Porter said. “[Walker] has a family I'm sure she has to provide for, so I'm not going to say, 'Yay. I'm glad she's gotten fired,' but I do believe she deserves some consequences after her actions."
Porter added, "You know everything happening in the nation now, and like now I'm a part of it. It hits home."
