New York state Sen. Jesse Hamilton (D) says a woman called the police on him for “dividing people” by distributing campaign materials that included criticisms of President Trump.
Hamilton told the New York Post that he was confronted by the unidentified woman while he was campaigning on a street corner in Brooklyn on Thursday morning.
The Democratic state lawmaker said he was distributing palms cards bearing the slogans “Fighting back Trump” and “Rising up Democrats” on the street when a woman passing by grew “belligerent.”
{mosads}“She said, ‘You should not stand here.’ She said, ‘You are dividing people,’ ” Hamilton said.
A staffer on Hamilton’s campaign team captured footage of the incident and later shared it to Facebook.
“If he really wants nation be as one and fight for the better life and live the better life you would not put this slogan here,” the woman said in the video pointing at the writing on the palm card, speaking in broken English.
The 47-second clip abruptly ends with the woman walking away.
According to the Post, the woman later called the police on Hamilton over his opposition to the president, citing his criticism of Trump’s immigration policy, local law enforcement confirmed to the paper.
Police who arrived to the scene determined that Hamilton was not doing anything illegal by distributing campaign materials.
The black lawmaker later compared his exchange with the woman to several other racially charged confrontations between black people and police that have gone viral recently.
“The pattern of targeting Black men and women for being Black and alive in the communities we all share has to stop,” Hamilton said in a Facebook post later on Thursday.