It turns out that black Twitter is not just a place for memes and watching the Shiggy Challenge. Protesters in St. Louis gathered to shut down a convenience store and block the exits after a video emerged of the store’s owner and another employee attacking a woman, prompting people who viewed the assault on social media to actually do something about it.
Around 10 a.m. this morning, Shemika Russell recorded an employee of Gas Mart confronting a woman outside the store. As the woman and the man from the store argued, another man, alleged to be the owner of the gas station, came outside and kicked the woman to the ground.
After the first kicker goes back into the store, the other man, apparently jealous of his boss’ racist kung-fu, decides to join in on the treat-a-black-woman-worse-than-Putin-treats-Trump festivities and kicked the woman again.
Russell was clearly upset by the incident and shared it on Facebook. A few hours later, after it spread across the Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms I’m too grown to know about, protesters from the neighborhood gathered at the store, blocked access to the gas pumps and prevented the store employees from leaving until police arrived, according to Fox 2.
An employee of the store said that police took two men into custody, one of whom was the gas station’s owner. The 50 or so protesters also made sure that the woman who was attacked, Kelli Adams, received medical attention.
“One of the workers, an Arab gentleman, kicked her in the stomach like she was a dog,” said Jermaine, one of the protesters and residents of the community. “So we’re here to shut it down. No more business for these people. They’re going to understand that we feed them. That they live off our community.”
When shown the video, Chris Brown did not ask if the convenience store owner offered martial arts classes.