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Apartment manager fired after woman says she and her boyfriend were profiled at pool

Posted at 9:22 PM, Jul 06, 2018
and last updated 2018-07-06 21:22:40-04

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Tennessee woman says she and her boyfriend were racially discriminated against while hanging out at her apartment building's pool on July Fourth, according to WREG.

Camry Porter recorded parts of the incident on her cellphone Wednesday at the Riverset Apartments in Mud Island – the clip has already been shared nearly 7,000 times.

Porter said she and her boyfriend, who are black, took her godchildren to spend the Fourth of July at the pool when one of the managers, Erica Walker – who is no longer employed at the apartment complex – called police because Porter's boyfriend was wearing socks in the water.

"I think she’s calling the police because he has on socks," Porter says in one of the videos. "She’s walking off making a phone call to whoever she needs to call. I haven’t said anything crazy to her, but I did tell her I was not going to leave."

Porter said Walker told them they had to either take off the socks or leave.

"She was like, 'Well, I’m the property manager,' and she pointed at the rules," Porter said. "The rules say 'proper pool attire.' It doesn’t specify what proper pool attire is."

Porter told WREG that before she started recording, Walker said that hats were included in the list of prohibited pool attire, but several other white men were wearing hats and another was wearing basketball shorts.

"So, she basically said no hats, no shirts, no socks," Porter said in one of the cellphone videos as she panned around the pool. "We have two men, who are her (Walker's) friends, sitting right here in hats. Two hats. We have a man over here sitting in a hat."

In the second video, the two women disagree about what was said before the camera started recording, but Walker tells Porter the problem is that her boyfriend was putting his socks in the water.

"You asked me if you could wear a hat out here," Walker tells Porter in the video. "I said, 'Yes, as long as you’re not dunking it in the water.'"

But Porter believed she and her boyfriend were singled out because of their skin color.

"It does look funny," she said. "It’s 25, 30-plus white people out here and you haven’t said anything — you’re partying with them. You’re partying with them! But when we come, it’s an issue."

In a statement Thursday, Trilogy Real Estate Group said:

"Riverset Apartments takes Ms. Porter’s allegations very seriously. We do not support discrimination of any kind."

Three hours later, the company sent another message stating the manager in the video had been fired:

"After assessing statements from Ms. Porter and determining that this former employee’s actions violate our company’s policies & beliefs, she is no longer employed by Riverset Apartments."