'Karen' Incident Turns Violent in Parking Garage

William 'Hank' Beasley is accused of blocking his neighbor from entering the building
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 27, 2020 9:30 AM CDT
'Karen' Incident Turns Violent in Parking Garage
William "Hank" Beasley is seen in a screenshot from video of the altercation.   (YouTube)

San Francisco—again? Only days after a "Karen" incident shook the city, another one unfolded Tuesday night. Michael Barajas, a Mexican American, captured much of it on video when a car blocked him from entering his own building's parking garage, ABC 7 News reports. A white man identified as William "Hank" Beasley accused Barajas of trespassing and said he "would not let a criminal into their complex." He also threatened to call the police. "That's fine. Call the cops," said Barajas, a 28-year-old UC Berkeley graduate. "Why are you even calling the cops about, Karen?" A man can be heard shouting, "You don't have a right to come in here!" The 20-minute standoff even turned violent when a white neighbor of Barajas intervened.

The neighbor hit Beasley's car and told him to move, prompting Beasley to yell, "You don't touch my car bro!" NBC News reports that Beasley "beat the neighbor up" and Barajas says Beasley "actually threatened to shoot us if we continued to engage in conversation." Barajas later filed a police report, and the San Francisco Chronicle notes that Beasley, who was employed by APEX Systems, was fired Thursday. A woman who was with Beasley defended him, saying "he didn't know" Barajas lived there, but that doesn't fly with Barajas: "Given the current political climate and certain I'm Mexican-American, and the rhetoric of us being criminals, just hit close to home," he tells KNTV. "Even if it wasn't about racism, the level of aggression exuded by him is not OK." (A man in last week's incident was also fired.)

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