NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: A Bellevue Hospital employee has been blasted as “CitiBike Karen” after she was captured trying to wrangle a CitiBike out of the hands of a young Black man who already had paid for it. A video of the heated skirmish, which was posted on Twitter on Saturday, May 13, saw the White woman attempting to make a scene while portraying the young man as a danger.
“Help! Help me! Please, help me,” yelled the White woman, who is seen wearing NYC Health + Hospital scrubs in the video. She kept crying out for help and tried to shove the young man while snatching his phone away. The young man tightened his grip on the handlebars of the bike and relentlessly warned the woman that he has already paid to use that particular bike. Despite numerous warnings, the woman continued to create an uproar by raising her voice and screaming for help. “Get off me! Get off me, you’re hurting my fetus,” she yelled while pushing the Black man.
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‘This lady tried her best to weaponize her tears’
“I’m not touching you! You’re putting your stomach on my hand,” the young man replied as the hospital employee shouted for help again. He made no attempt to push the woman back but instead stood firm as he and his pals warned her to back off and get her own bike. At one point in the video, the woman pretended to start crying after a White man wearing the same hospital scrub tried to intervene and asked ‘what is going on’. As the incident heated up further, the young man made a final appeal to the woman, saying, "This is my bike, and it's on my account. Please move."
Meanwhile, the young man’s friends, who were behind the camera, claimed that she didn’t shed one tear as she was easily able to go from “crying” back to normal. The woman finally left the bike after her apparent co-worker calmed her down and advised her to take another bike. The chaotic video has garnered more than 6.6 million views on Twitter, with many users branding the woman as “CitiBike Karen.” “This lady tried her best to weaponize her tears, but when she realized it wasn't going to work she switched it off and acted like nothing happened. This should be criminal,” one user wrote.
‘She is evil and her lil friend too’
"My frustration with CitiBike Karen is that I have no doubt she has harmed Black patients," a second user fumed while the third user said, "She tried taking a CitiBike that already paid for on his account. Then pulled out the white woman's tears when her co-worker from the hospital showed up. America this is why we still have a problem! She was totally in the wrong and tried to play the victim. #Karen."
"It's the fact that Citi Bike Karen works at Bellevue. She obviously needs to be patient. Imagine trying steal a Citi bike from a kid," another person asserted. In the wake of the backlash, A DCPI spokesperson told The NY Post that the NYPD is aware of the video circulating online.
“There are currently no 911 calls or reports on file for this incident,” the spokesperson said, adding, “The NYPD encourages anyone who believes they were a victim of a crime to come forward and report it at any police facility so that an investigation can commence.” Meanwhile, NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue addressed the incident in a statement, saying, “We have recently become aware of an incident that occurred off-campus over the weekend and appears to involve one of our employees. We are sorry this happened and we are reviewing the incident. NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue is committed to providing the highest quality of care to all New Yorkers with dignity, cultural sensitivity, and compassion.”
