San Francisco police are responding to news that went viral of a business owner who was suspected of burglarizing his own lemonade stand in the Mission District and have released body camera footage of the incident.
KRON4 met with the business owner on Monday. The video released by the police is only a snippet of the incident.
The business owner tells KRON4 it’s not the behavior of the police that was the real problem, but it was a man passing by that made the call assuming he was up to no good, putting him in a position that he believes had potential to end much worse.
The selfie with Vicktor Stevenson has made its way across news outlets and social media, as police approached him to a call from a passerby that he was burglarizing a business that turned out to be his own.
On Monday, the San Francisco Police Department released body camera footage showing the scene it says lasted 3 minutes, revealing a different perspective Stevenson says he can learn from.
“It was scary,” Stevenson said. “I saw that I really need to brush up on my tech skills, getting my camera open much faster.”
Stevenson says he was in the middle of setting up a security camera system for his new lemonade stand Gourmonade in the Mission District when police approached and asked for I.D. explaining someone made a call of a possible burglary in process.
“It kind of sucks to relive that because nobody wants to be rolled up on by men with guns,” Stevenson said. “At the end of the day, that’s just facts. And for no really, justified reason other than just being here minding my own business.”
“At my business. Literally minding my own business at my business. Literally,” Stevenson added.
The San Francisco Police Department released a statement in response to the incident saying, “While we have no say over who requests our services, we do have a say over how we respond. We believe our officers responded appropriately and with courtesy to this call.”
Oddly enough, despite the unpleasant circumstance, Stevenson has gotten a lot of love and support as a result, both from business owners on the block, locals, and social media.
He says he even had to buy a new phone because his old one gave out from all the texts and calls.