*Gordon Lawshe, a former city council member of a New Jersey town, has sparked a backlash in the community after calling the police on a Black girl because she was catching spotted lanternflies.
Lawshe, a local Republican Party leader, is the neighbor of the child’s mother, Monique Joseph, and she spoke out about the incident at a local board meeting last week, The Daily Beast reports. According to Joseph, Lawshe told police, “There’s a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees. I don’t know what the hell she’s doing, it scares me though.”
Joseph’s daughter is 9-year-old Bobbi Wilson and Revolt reports that her elementary school taught students that the invasive spotted lanternflies species, which kills trees, can be safely removed using “a mixture of apple cider vinegar, water and dish soap,” the outlet writes.
The incident with Lawshe happened on Oct. 22 while Bobbi was outside her home spraying a homemade solution on the insects. When Lawshe saw her, he called the cops. Joseph believes he racially profiled her daughter.
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A NJ resident called police on a 9-year-old Black girl using a homemade spotted lanternfly repellant to try and stop the invasive species from harming trees in her neighborhood.
The girl’s mother and sister described the ‘traumatic’ experience at a local council meeting. pic.twitter.com/RLK1jJmcmP
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Joseph decided to speak about the disturbing police call to members of a Caldwell Borough Council meeting “to bring awareness on racism and implicit bias that [she] experienced on the very street that [she lives] on,” she said.
The child’s mother obtained audio of the police recording and she told council members at the Nov. 1 meeting that Lawshe told officers her child was “wearing a hoodie.”
“It is sickening and scary to hear my neighbor use triggering words that have resulted in the death of too many Black and brown children and adults at the hands of the police: Black, hoodie, ‘I’m scared.’ Those are triggered words,” Joseph said.
She continued, “My neighbor’s words put my daughter in harm’s way. His words and actions were unconscionable, and the impact of the aftermath of this incident will not be kept secret. My 9-year-old daughter was afraid to go outside her front door the next day. She was afraid that her neighbor that she knows has a reason, unknown to her, to call the police on her.”
“She was not only doing something amazing for our environment, she was doing something that made her feel like a hero,” Bobbi’s older sister Hayden Wilson said during the meeting about her sibling spraying the lanternflies.
“Mr. Gordon decided it would be appropriate to call the police on my sister. He also claimed he was scared,” she added in the Twitter video above.
New Jersey Mayor John Kelley reportedly apologized to the family and told The Daily Beast, “After reflecting on the story and learning more from the police report, it is clear that a line was crossed. My heart goes out to Monique and her two girls.”
Scroll up to hear the mother’s full remarks on the matter via the YouYube video.
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