Angry exchange on video shows gun being pulled on mom, teen in Orion Twp.
An angry exchange with accusations of racism was caught on video outside of an Oakland County Chipotle restaurant and shows a woman pulling a gun on a mother and her 15-year-old daughter Wednesday evening.
Update: Couple charged with felonious assault after pulling gun on mom, daughters in Chipotle parking lot
Takelia Hill, who is Black, said her daughter was bumped into by a woman, who is white, before entering the fast-food restaurant in Orion Township at about 6 p.m. The daughter said she asked the woman for an apology and said the woman began yelling at her.
“Before I could walk into Chipotle, this woman was coming out, and I had moved out the way so she can walk out," Makayla Green said. “She bumped me, and I said, 'Excuse you.' And then she started cussing me out and saying things like I was invading her personal space.”
The teen called her mother over because she said she was scared.
“I walked up on the woman yelling at my daughter," Hill said. “She couldn’t see me because her back was to me, but she was in my daughter's face."
The initial encounter was not caught on video. The footage starts after the altercation moved to the Chipotle parking lot near the vehicle of the woman accused of bumping into the teen.
At one point, the woman who pulled the gun listens to the mom and teen, one of whom repeats that the woman is "ignorant" and "racist." A man from the vehicle exits and asks the pair, "Who the (expletive) do you think you guys are?" and helps the woman into the vehicle. He and Hill exchange angry words before he walks back to the driver's side.
From the passenger seat, as Hill asks the woman why she bumped her daughter, the woman says through the rolled down passenger-side window: "You cannot just walk around calling white people racist ... White people aren't racist ... I care about you and I’m sorry if you had an incident that has made someone make you feel like that. No one is racist.”
The woman rolls up her window and Hill is seen stepping back as the vehicle starts to drive away.
Hill then said she thought the driver was going to hit them as the driver backed out of the parking space, so she hit the back window of the vehicle to stop it.
The woman jumped out and pulled a gun. The woman walks backward and repeatedly shouts "Get the (expletive) back!" and "Back the (expletive) up!" as she points the gun. The mother and teen begin yelling and calling for the cops as the woman climbs back into the vehicle.
She climbs back into the vehicle as Hill yelled for someone to call 911.
Witnesses watching called the police and the Oakland County Sheriff’s office arrived shortly after the gun was pulled.
The Sheriff’s Office said it was planning to hold a press conference on the incident at 3:30 p.m. Thursday.
The woman was reportedly later let go, according to an aunt on Twitter.
The Sheriff's Office did not confirm this as of Thursday morning.
Hill said the incident left her and her other daughters, who were in the family's vehicle, traumatized.
The backlash over the incident was swift.
“I am deeply disturbed by an incident last night where a woman pointed a cocked gun at another woman during an argument," Oakland County Executive David Coulter said in a statement Thursday. "This behavior is unacceptable. I wholly expect the prosecutor to bring charges that reflect the severity of the incident.”
On Thursday, state Sen. Rosemary Bayer, D-Beverly Hills, called the incident unacceptable.
"There is nothing acceptable about what happened in Orion Township last night at the Chipotle. It is abhorrent to think that some in this country have such a sense of self-righteousness and entitlement that the idea of pulling a gun out on an unarmed child and her mother is OK," Bayer said in a statement.
"It is not, and I condemn anyone who thinks otherwise. My heart goes out to Ms. Hill and her daughters, who may now forever be traumatized by this experience."
Bayer also called for gun reform.
"Michigan needs commonsense gun reform, and we need it now. People should feel safe going about their day and not have to worry about having a gun pulled on them during a conflict," she said. "This incident clearly shows we have much work to do because this is not how we should be treating each other.”
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