A viral TikTok video shows the moment a Black HVAC technician claims a client called the cops on him and falsely accused him of threatening her.
“Here’s a sample of what life is like being a black man in America. …#happyblackhistorymonth,” reads a caption for the clip, which was uploaded Wednesday by Alonzo Harmon.
In the TikTok video, which was taken on Nov. 29, 2022, Harmon turns the camera toward himself and can be seen standing outside a garage in Golden Valley, Minnesota, as it snows. A woman inside the garage appears as if she’s talking on the phone.
“She is on the phone with 911 right now,” Harmon says to the camera.
“He says I’m rude, and he just threatened me right now,” the woman says on her call.
Harmon, standing several feet away from the woman, says, “What threat did I make towards you, ma’am?”
The woman, who identified herself as “Elizabeth,” ignores Harmon’s question.
In the next part of the video, the woman cries hysterically as Harmon suggests she’s faking her tears.
“Please, please, please! I’m so scared right now!” the woman yells on the call. “I’m shaking right now! Please, please! …I’m so scared!”
Meanwhile, Harmon continues to stand outside the garage, away from the woman.
“I’ve never in my life had to deal with no bullshit like this,” he then laughs, walking away from the garage.
The Golden Valley Police Department declined to confirm Harmon’s account of what transpired before and after the phone call, but provided a police report showing that two officers responded to the house and left without taking any further action.
“The officers spoke with the gentleman recording the video, and he left with no further investigation taking place involving the incident that was called in,” a spokesperson for the department said. “That is all the information we have.”
The Daily Beast made multiple, unsuccessful attempts to reach the woman for comment.
Harmon told The Daily Beast that he went to the client’s home just outside of Minneapolis to perform an air-duct cleaning, and he could tell things were off as soon as he arrived.
“Just the way she cut me off when I tried to explain things,” he said. “When I entered the home, the first thing she says to me is, ‘They let you do a job like this?’”
“Once I actually started to try to do my job, she was over my back. Basically, [continuously] asking me the same question on how I got the job. What was my interest in the job, do I actually know what I’m doing. Like, do I actually know what I’m doing in the home and stuff like that,” he added.
He said that he laughed off her comments until she allegedly told him she simply didn’t trust him.
“She [didn’t] believe they sent the right person out to her home,” Harmon continued. “Basically, [she] didn’t believe I worked for the company.”
At that point he decided to pack up his equipment and leave—telling her that she was being rude—and that’s when the woman called the police, he said. According to Harmon, police stayed briefly to document what each side said had happened, and told him to leave the premises to de-escalate the situation. But the woman allegedly asked the officers if Harmon could finish his job.
“I said, ‘No,’” Harmon said. “‘She has to deal with someone else.’”
Harmon did not specify the woman’s race or ethnicity, but did say that there was a language barrier between the two. He also told The Daily Beast he felt the situation was racially motivated.
“You’re basically grilling me as I approach your home. There can’t be any other reason for you to be doing this, you know?” he said.
The company Harmon works for did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment Thursday.
Harmon felt that the woman put his life at risk.
“She basically was putting my life in danger, just because of what’s going on in the world with Black men and police obviously, police brutality, stuff like that, and just the way that she tried to portray what was going on,” Harmon told The Daily Beast.
“That really scared me honestly,” he added. “[I] didn’t know what type of police officers I would get when they arrived there. …But once they got there…they basically just asked me to leave because she actually was still mad once they got there. She was yelling at the officer.”
