Video of Minnesota man threatening to call police on black entrepreneurs goes viral

A video of a man in Minneapolis questioning whether several young black men were entitled to be working out in the same gym has gone viral in the latest example of apparently racist behavior aimed at African Americans going about their every day lives.

The video – which spread rapidly on social media after being posted on Instagram - appears to show local businessmen Tom Austin telling a group of young black men that he would call police inside the gym at the MozAic East building in Minneapolis.

The clips were posted by Team Top Figure, a group of black entrepreneurs who also stated that each of their members had access to the gym as they worked out of an office in the building.

They show Austin, who also worked out of the building, asking the men which office they worked at and then threatening to call the police. He then appears to make a phone call to building security instead.

In a caption on one of the clips the Team Top Figure group posted: “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 on to this situation.”

Austin told Newsweek in an email that he “should have handled it differently”, but insisted the incident had nothing to do with race. “They got in my face in a very threatening manner and I threatened back to call [building] security. I would have done this regardless of race,” he said.

The clip comes after a video of a woman in Central Park, New York, also sent viral after she threatened to call the police on an African American birdwatcher who had asked her to put a leash on her dog which was running free in a part of the park where that is not allowed.

Related: Video of white woman calling police on black man in Central Park draws outrage

“I’m going to tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life,” Amy Cooper told Christian Cooper, before calling 911. That video helped reignite a national debate over everyday racism and a social media storm that eventually saw Amy Cooper lose her job and return her dog to an animal shelter.

It follows other examples of white people calling the police on black people doing everyday things such as jogging, swimming, holding a barbecue or merely gardening.

But the Minneapolis situation also comes as the city is reeling from the killing of African American George Floyd in an incident involving four police officers who were seeking to arrest him on charges of forgery. In a disturbing video that created a global outcry an officer knelt on Floyd’s neck as he lay on the ground crying that he could not breathe and was in pain.

Protests against the killing took place in Minneapolis on Tuesday night with police in riot gear firing teargas and rubber bullets into a crowd.