One of the white women seen on video in a scuffle with black teens in a fight at the notorious McKinney, Texas, pool party is now defending her name, insisting at a press conference in Los Angeles Tuesday that she never said anything racist toward the teens, the Dallas Morning News reports.
Tracey Carver told the Morning News in a statement that she was merely attempting to defuse a situation between her friend and a young woman when things took a bad turn. Carver has said that she has had to move to California because of threats against her and her family.
The black teen involved in the altercation, Tatyana Rhodes, told a photojournalist that another white woman told her to go back to her public housing before hitting her in the face. Rhodes was the host of the party in the Craig Ranch neighborhood of McKinney.
Carver described partygoers as becoming angry when asked to show their key cards for access to the community pool. Carver was also asked to show her key card, she said, but opted to leave with her children, a grandchild and a friend when, she said, people started taunting, “Go home, bye, black haters.”
“It was nearly impossible to exit the gate because it was lined three rows deep with dozens of what appeared to be disrespectful, unruly and violent teens and young adults,” Carver said in the statement, according to the Morning News.
Once Carver left, she said, one teen began screaming racial insults at her friend, claiming that the pool was public. The friend retorted that people had to pay fees to use the pool. It was at that point, Carver claimed, that a young woman came at her friend and grabbed her hair.
“My kids were screaming and traumatized,” Carver said. “I walked out to defuse the fight and did just that. I didn’t beat anyone nor use racial slurs of any kind.”
She said that someone threw an Icee at her, hitting her in her back and splashing her 11-year-old who was in the car.
Carver has reportedly hired Gloria Allred, who has represented women accusing Bill Cosby of sexual assault, for her case.
“I have agreed to support Tracey and her family, because I am very concerned that the movement for racial equality suffers a serious setback when innocent individuals are wrongly accused of making racist statements based on false rumors and find themselves and their children being threatened that they will be raped and murdered,” Allred said in a statement, the news site notes.
Read more at the Dallas Morning News.