A multi-ethnic group of family and friends were enjoying the day in Berkeley when they say they were harassed by a white woman telling them they don’t belong there.

A portion of the incident was captured on cellphone video that has gone viral.

Although police were called, no charges were filed. Now, one of the alleged victims says he is ready to press charges. On Monday night, he spoke on camera for the first time since the incident occurred.

Essex Cook says the incident happened on Memorial Day Weekend in Berkeley. He says his multi-racial group of family and friends were walking on Shattuck when suddenly, they started getting harassed by a woman you see in the video. Berkeley police identified her as 32-year-old Lauren Milewski.

Cook says when police offered him the opportunity to press charges against Milewski, he declined.

Now, he says he wants to hold her accountable.

“Yeah, I am coming forward to press charges and tell my story,” Cook said. “A lot of people was like, ‘what did you guys do?’ I mean, I defended my family the best I could without harming somebody.”

Cook says the confrontation started after his group tried to step aside and let the woman walk around them.

“So, we didn’t want no trouble, so we step to the side,” Cook said. “She said, ‘You know what? I want to walk on that side.’ So, we step to the other side. She said, ‘Now you’re by my car.’ At that point, I said, ‘This is kind of crazy. Y’all let’s go.'”

That is when things escalated.

“At this point, she said, ‘You. You don’t belong here, and I’m like, ‘OK’ and everybody is trying to intervene and the females are getting into the middle of it and she was poking me in the back of my head, saying ‘You don’t belong here,'” Cook said. “I noticed people started walking by, and it was getting kind of a commotion. ‘You know what? I don’t know problems.’ I told my girlfriend, go, ’cause I don’t want no problems.”

He says one of the reasons he didn’t want any problem is because his girlfriend is pregnant. His young son was also there.

He says he also had anxiety about the police being called.

“I saw the police rolling up,” Cook said. “My heart dropped at that point just being an African-American male, and she is yelling, ‘They are a mob of people who attacked me.'”

When it was all sorted out, Milewski was arrested for public intoxication, resisting arrest, and a probation violation. The police report confirms a physical altercation took place with Milewski assaulting one of the females in the group, ripping her shirt.

Cook wants to add more charges to prevent what he believes is an unprovoked, racially-motivated incident from happening to someone else.

“Man just trying to be a black person trying to live your life, the normal culture that we believe in,” Cook said. “Some people are uncomfortable with it, and it makes them feel a certain way, and those uncomfortable feelings make them act in a certain manner that shows who they are, and it’s not, ‘Hey, you get to go by because you were drunk or you have a mental ailment.’ If that mental ailment is causing you to act in such a manner, maybe somebody needs to deal with you.”

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