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A San Francisco Supervisor is introducing a bill that would outlaw racially-motivated 911 calls.
Supervisor Shamann Walton introduced the CAREN Act on Tuesday, which stands for Caution Against Racially Exploitative Non-Emergencies. Under the legislation, people who call law enforcement based on racial bias could face criminal charges.
There have been several high-profile instances of white people threatening to call the police on people of color for innocuous activities in the Bay Area, videos of which have gone viral online. Last month, a white couple called the police in San Francisco after confronting a Filipino man who was stenciling "Black Lives Matter" on his own Pacific Heights property in chalk.
In 2018, a woman was filmed calling 911 in a panic over two Black men who were grilling at Oakland’s Lake Merritt. That incident went viral and the woman, Jennifer Schulte, became known online as "BBQ Becky."
During a Board of Supervisors Meeting, Walton said both measures "are part of a larger nationwide movement to address racial biases and implement consequences for weaponizing emergency resources with racist intentions."
