photo credit: PK Studio // Shutterstock
Earlier this month, a woman in Brooklyn claimed that 9-year-old Jeremiah Harvey groped her while at a convenience store. Teresa Klein, recently known as “Cornerstone Caroline” since the incident, called the cops screaming that she was sexually assaulted by a child and wanted the cops to come right away. A few days later, surveillance video showed that it was the boy’s backpack that grazed the woman’s backside as he walked by her with his hands in front of him. She issued an apology once the surveillance was released,
“I called 911 because this woman was very aggressive,” Klein told New York ABC station WABC, referring to the boy’s mother, who she said threatened her. “Young man, I don’t know your name, but I’m sorry.” She denied that her calling was racially motivated.
Jeremiah was out shopping with his mother and younger sister when the woman accused him. He is now speaking out for the first time saying that he is traumatized by the situation and now he is forced to look at race in a whole new way.
“It’s still hard because lately on my mind, like, I can’t think nothing but this,” Jeremiah, sitting alongside his mother, said. “I felt humiliated because of the way she was acting. I started to tear up.”
“It was devastating for him,” his mother said, “because even after walking away he was pointing to, you know, patrol cars on Flatbush Avenue and saying, ‘Mommy, are they here to take you away from us?'”
Written by Clarke Jones