Texas doctor said BLM protesters attacked his daughter. Police video shows otherwise
A Texas doctor deleted his Twitter account and issued an apology after his tweet accusing Black Lives Matter protesters of attacking his daughter and her boyfriend in Baltimore was shown to be false.
Dr. Andrea Natale, a clinical cardiac electrophysiologist at St. David’s Medical Center in Austin, Texas, took to Twitter earlier this week after his daughter frantically called from Baltimore, saying that the police couldn’t do anything about the attack because the suspects were Black.
“My daughter called in tears,” Natale wrote in the now-deleted tweet that went viral. “She was driving w her boyfriend in Baltimore & their car was attacked by a group of BLM. It was damaged & her BF was beaten. She filmed it & called police but they cannot do anything bc they are African American. Is this the America we want?”
The Baltimore Police Department released body-cam footage from the responding officers that showed an officer responding to a call for destruction of property on Sunday. The officer speaks with a couple who had an encounter with squeegee workers.
“The kid came and tried to wipe the windshield and we very politely said no and then they started yelling at us,” said the female victim to the officer in the footage.
“I got out of the car, three guys surrounded me and I said, okay – stop. I will defend myself. I do have a knife on me and the other guy pulled out his knife,” the boyfriend said to the officer.
The footage shows no indication of Black Lives Matter activists or that the boyfriend was injured, which Natale’s tweet had indicated. The officer says that the city doesn’t want the police to “engage with squeegee boys,” which is clearly stated.
“We’ve got our hands tied. It’s illegal walking in the street, but they don’t want us to,” he says in the video.
“Squeegee kids,” as they’re known in Baltimore, are often minors who approach cars at stops, offering to wash driver’s windshields, and police “handling” them has been a controversial issue that dates back decades.
According to multiple media outlets, the doctor issued an apology for the tweet.
“I sincerely apologize for a tweet I posted this weekend. I was worried about my daughter, and I jumped to a conclusion based on the information I had at the time. I’ve dedicated my entire professional career to healing people from all backgrounds, and I regret that my words created hurt and pain. It was not my intention.”
This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 6:59 PM.