Black entrepreneurs toured an upscale California neighborhood. False claims spread online
Fear and concern spread in El Dorado Hills as rumors circulated that protesters were heading toward the suburbs as demonstrators protested the killing of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody.
One of the rumors stemmed from a photo which went viral throughout El Dorado Hills and Folsom, claiming that carloads of rioters were on their way into neighborhoods. The incident prompted residents to call law enforcement, and the photo caught the attention of a congressional candidate.
“This is not a joke,” read the Facebook post. “They are currently in my nieces neighborhood. Where are all my Second Amendment Peeps at?? May need to call on you today.”
The photo depicted nearly 20 young men and women, the majority of whom were black, walking through an upscale El Dorado Hills neighborhood.
In reality, the image was of an ambitious entrepreneurial group touring homes.
Malachi Turner, a 22-year-old Rocklin entrepreneur, mentors young college students and graduates, and teaches them how to work for themselves through Kai Collective.
Turner spent June 1 showing the team how to “dream build” for what they want in their future. It was the first time Turner took a team out to tour million-dollar homes in the region.
“It starts with believing and conceiving,” Turner said. “Your mind has a lot to do with that.”
Turner and his team spent about three hours driving and walking through Granite Bay, Folsom and El Dorado Hills neighborhoods where large, custom-made homes with views of Folsom Lake line the hilly streets.
“We can’t get our mind around something, we can’t get to wanting something or even feeling like it’s real because we’ve never experienced it,” Turner said in a video shared on Instagram. “So today, take your pictures, take your videos and envision yourself living the way we’re about to see, and envision yourself in the homes we are about to see.”
No one in the group had signs, and no one was chanting, Turner said.
“We were waving to these people, greeting these people,” Turner said in a seven-minute YouTube video he posted Thursday, explaining what happened.
In Folsom, the team posed for a group photo with a Folsom police officer in front of a home that recently sold for $1.5 million.
Turner had no idea that some of the residents were photographing them on the tour and taking to social media to warn residents.
Folsom police received one call about the group. The caller told police the large group looked “unusual.” Officers drove by, according to a police spokesman, and spoke to the group. After learning the group was looking at homes, the officers left.
A couple of El Dorado Hills residents chatted amicably with the group from their balconies and shared what they did for a living. One driver stopped his car and asked where the group was headed.
“Some people were nice and some gave us dirty looks,” Turner said. “While we thought that it was harmless, they were going on social media and spreading rumors saying that carloads of rioters are hitting our neighborhood.”
Five people called the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office, deputies said.
Social media posts spark concern
Former El Dorado Hills resident Laura Radley, who recently moved to Alabama, saw the fear unfold on local Facebook pages and tried to calm her old neighbors down.
“Spreading rumors and unfounded threats is not part of the solution,” she wrote to Facebook friends June 1. “That can lead to devastating consequences for everyone involved.”
But Radley said her pleas fell mostly on deaf ears.
One person on Facebook told residents that she spoke with the group, but that they still seemed suspicious, adding to the panic.
And in an attempt to stop the rumors, Melissa Poquiz posted on Nextdoor, an online neighborhood hub for people to share information with their local community.
“It makes me sad, angry, livid that this group of dreamers are heartbroken by what they see our community as.” Poquiz wrote. “We must do better!”
Poquiz, who lives five minutes away from where Turner was touring, said some neighbors defended the group while others remained suspicious.
“Being a minority myself, I needed to stand up for what was right,” said Poquiz, who is Filipino American.
But fear and concern continued to spread.
Some residents were already on high alert after a newly created Twitter account of uncertain origin, but purporting to be Antifa, sowed fear Sunday night saying that rioters were moving into predominantly white neighborhoods. Twitter reportedly suspended the account. NBC News and others reported that the account was run by white nationalists.
Buzz Patterson, a Republican running for California’s 7th Congressional District against Democratic Rep. Ami Bera, warned El Dorado Hills residents of possible protests and responding to at least one person to stay indoors.
Patterson shared a May 31 tweet that he said confirmed protesters were targeting the suburbs.
“It’s time to move this to Roseville, I’m talkin ELK GROVE !! EL DORADO! They’re the ones that need to hear this,” the tweet from Elk Grove resident Josh Cagibula read.
“URGENT!: CA-7, looks like Antifa and rioters are targeting Roseville, Folsom, El Dorado Hills, and Elk Grove tonight! Stay safe and please notify your family and friends!” Patterson wrote in a June 1 tweet that was shared more than 1,000 times.
Patterson did not respond to The Sacramento Bee’s request for comment, but responded on Twitter to accusations that he was creating a false alarm.
“No, I’m looking out for CA-7!” he stated.
Cagibula told The Bee his tweet was intended to encourage others to talk about current events after Floyd’s death. Cagibula said the candidate took his tweet out of context and that it wasn’t meant to spread fear. Cagibula said he received death threats as a result.
“I meant to say more people need to open their eyes to the inequalities people face daily,” he said. “It seems as though they’re just batting an eye, as they usually do. My tweet meant more people in (Elk Grove) should start to be on the same page.”
Radley said the timing of the tweets being shared the same day as the photo of Turner and his team couldn’t have been worse.
“It kept snowballing,” Radley told The Bee. “(The simultaneous posts) were a coincidence, but there was also a lot of racism happening. Then the next thing I know, the National Guard was coming.”
It is unclear if the social media posts contributed to El Dorado Hills officials bringing the National Guard, but the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office acknowledged the rumors.
“There are a lot of rumors of looting, crime, and rioting over social media regarding our county,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a public statement. “Right now, there are no confirmed cases of looting or criminal behavior associated with rioting. We have many people working very hard to ensure it stays this way.”
The Sheriff’s Office said the National Guard was a precautionary measure and a deterrent for criminal activity, and not for peaceful protesting.
The aftermath
The photo of Turner and his team continued to spread online and throughout El Dorado Hills, raising concerns among residents. Turner said it wasn’t until days later that he realized the photo of them was being used to warn residents of protesters in the area.
“If it was another group of individuals, I don’t believe the fear would have been the same,” Turner said.
Brian Landsberg, a professor at University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and an expert in critical race theory, said reactions like this on social media and online platforms are all too common.
“If we had more housing integration, people wouldn’t be so suspicious of people of color,” he said.
Erin Kerrison, a professor in the school of social welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, and who studies the criminal legal system, said what occurred to the dream builders was not only vigilantism, but also anti-blackness.
“There is something that is very unique and very durable about white property claims to their space and their right to make that space safe,” Kerrison said. “They imagine what is theirs, their streets, their grocery stores, their sidewalks, and what they claim is theirs against a black threat.”
Both Landsberg and Kerrison said the reaction likely had more to do with race than it had to do with the team touring million-dollar homes.
More than 80 percent of El Dorado Hills’ 42,000 residents are white, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, while just 1.6 percent are black.
“There is a reason why those spaces became all white in the first place,” said Bruce Haynes, a UC Davis professor and scholar of racial and ethnic relations and urban communities. “They went there when Sacramento became too dark, and it’s white flight into the exurbs.”
Turner said the experience continued to confirm to him that racism was prevalent in America.
“Being black in American is not equal,” Turner said in his video. “We do not have the same experiences and we do not have the same opportunities. And we do have to deal with judgment and racial profiling.”
Turner said he was particularly alarmed at the calls for residents to arm themselves.
“You’re telling me you were prepared and ready to shoot people, a group of individuals just because they’re black?” he said in his video. “That racial profiling is going to get people killed.”
Kerrison said Turner’s experience only confirms what many black Americans have long experienced.
“This is a legacy that is robust,” she said. “If there is a threat, then a gun is the most efficient way to deal with it. And when the law and institutions think that is justified, it continues to happen, it signals that it’s OK to hunt black people.”
The gravity of what could have gone wrong weighed heavily on Turner, in light of recent incidents where neighbors have racially profiled, and sometimes killed, black people for being in their neighborhood.
“Ahmaud Arbery was killed,” he said. “What if someone from my team got separated, and someone said ‘OK, here’s the threat, let’s neutralize the threat’?”
Turner said despite this experience, he would take another team to go on a dream-building tour.
“But I would have to go about it in a different way,” Turner said. “I can’t put my team in harm’s way.”
This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Black entrepreneurs toured an upscale California neighborhood. False claims spread online."