The woman known to many online as Pool Patrol Paula (real name: Stephanie Sebby-Strempel) may soon be an Unemployment Line Lindsey.
Sebby-Strempel’s employer, Rodan + Fields, an American skin-care company, cut her this week after the backlash against Sebby-Strempel made its way into the company’s inboxes and Twitter mentions.
“In accordance with our policies and after assessing statements from law enforcement, this Independent Consultant is no longer affiliated with Rodan + Fields,” a company representative told Yahoo! Lifestyle via email.
Sebby-Strempel made the rounds on the internet after video was shared of her laying her hands on and threatening to call the cops regarding three black teens for their crime of (squints at notes) showing up at a Summerville, S.C., community pool this past Sunday.
“Get out! Get out now!” she is heard shouting at the kids in the video footage. “There are three numbers I can dial: 9-1-1. Get out. Little punks,” she adds, her hand striking the camera.
But Sebby-Strempel didn’t stop there. When Dorchester County police arrived at Sebby-Strempel’s home Monday to arrest her on charges of assaulting the three teens—none of whom provoked or retaliated against Sebby-Strempel, investigators say—she attacked the arresting officers.
Police say she injured one detective’s knee after pushing him into a wall, and then bit the arm of another detective so hard it broke his skin. (It should be noted: Had Sebby-Strempel been of a darker persuasion, it’s difficult to imagine her surviving the encounter.)
The 38-year-old has been charged with third-degree assault and two counts of assaulting an officer while resisting arrest.
The incident was yet another in a growing cadre of white women threatening to call police on black people for doing such mundane, everyday things as cooking out, selling bottled water, napping, going to the pool and ordering a meal. Lately, the more egregious incidents have been given hashtags (see the ongoing saga of #PermitPatty). As such, it garnered attention from national media and sleuth Twitter, which quickly found out where she was employed.
As Yahoo! Lifestyle reports, it wasn’t long before social media and Reddit users began lobbying Rodan + Fields to terminate Sebby-Strempel. The company confirmed that she was an independent contractor for Rodan + Fields, and issued a more tepid response at first, saying, “We do not condone violence of any kind and pride ourselves on embracing inclusion and acceptance of all.”
“We are reaching out to this individual to reiterate our corporate values,” the company tweeted in response to the criticism.
However, the company took a harder stance Wednesday, writing to Yahoo! Lifestyle to confirm that it had cut ties with #PoolPatrolPaula. She now joins her partner in caucasity, #PermitPatty, who resigned as CEO of her own cannabis company after public blowback from an incident in which she called the police on an 8-year-old girl selling water on a hot summer day.