Minneapolis Man Fired & Loses Office Lease After Threatening Cops On Black Entrepreneurs
A white Minneapolis man’s office lease was terminated and he was fired after a video went viral of him racially profiling a group of black enterprenaurs who were using a gym in a co-working space they rented.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Tom Austin, the managing partner of F2 Group, threatened to call the police on the group of black men on Tuesday. The men own Top Figure, a social media, and branding agency, and their office is located in the building.
“Should have handled it differently,” Austin said in an email to the Tribune. “Not my job to have done anything.”
Austin claims that he is not racist.
Top Figure posted the clip on Instagram with the caption,
“Normally we don’t speak out about encounters of racial profiling and age discrimination that we face day to day in our lives as young black entrepreneurs. Although today May 26th 2020 7:51pm we encountered a situation where a man entered the facility, a shared private gym that we utilize in our @wework @mozaic_east office located in uptown Minnesota. Granted we’ve been in this office space and have rented and grown our business for the past 1 year and half here. As we were working out this man approached and immediately asked us who we were and if “WE BELONG” in this building. Granted in order to enter the building you NEED a key card to enter EVERY part of the building which EACH of our team members individually have. We all pay rent here and this man demanded that we show him our key cards or he will call the cops on us. We are sick and tired of tolerating this type of behavior on a day to day basis and we feel that we had to bring light onto this situation.”