NYC Hospital 'Karen' Put on Leave After Weird Bike Incident

White woman appears to try to push Black man off Citi Bike he says he rented
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted May 18, 2023 3:00 AM CDT

A Bellevue Hospital employee is on leave after an odd bike incident was captured on video. The woman, wearing NYC Health + Hospitals scrubs, is shown trying to grab a Citi Bike from a Black man while crying out for help, the New York Post reports. The man tells her he's paid to use that bike and that it's on his account, and though he does not make any attempt to push her away from the bike in the video, she can be seen pushing him and then grabbing his phone while yelling, "Get off me, you’re hurting my fetus." He responds, “I’m not touching you! You’re putting your stomach on my hand." After a man wearing the same scrubs arrives on the scene and suggests the woman check out a different bike, she stops crying and starts to do so, NBC New York reports.

"We are aware of the video involving a health care provider off duty and away from the hospital campus. The incident in the video is disturbing,” NYC Health + Hospitals says in a statement. “The provider is currently out on leave and will remain on leave pending a review." A lawyer for the woman says that her client first paid for the bike using the Citi Bike app before being approached by the man in the video and his friends, who said the bike was theirs and pushed it back into its docking station. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, however, says the woman "tried to weaponize her tears to paint this man as a threat," endangering him and his friends, and many commenters online agreed, comparing her to the so-called "Central Park Karen." (More viral video stories.)

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