00:00Me? I don't. Are you kidding me? If you've been eyeing up a Goyard tote or Christian Dior sunglasses
00:09or Gucci wallet, you can get a dupe for pretty cheap and pretty good looking on Canal Street,
00:15covering almost every inch of sidewalk down there. So long as you follow the number one rule of the
00:21street vendors, the one thing you cannot do is film them. Walking down Canal Street, it took
00:26all of two seconds before the vendors were yelling at me, covering up their faces, asking me why I was
00:32filming, telling me I wasn't allowed to. And one particularly furious one smacked the phone right
00:38out of my hand. What are you doing? Filming. Huh? Filming. Why are you taking me video without you shit?
00:45I'm taking video of the sidewalk. Come on, have respect, man. You gotta ask me. Me? I don't. Are you
00:54kidding me?
00:56Oh my God. He was screaming at me. Everyone else was screaming at me. I didn't know if they were
01:03going
01:03to come after me and try to take the phone out of my hand. So I called the police. I
01:07called 911.
01:08There was not a cop in sight down there, despite the fact that there were hordes, hundreds of these
01:14illegal bags on the street. By the time the cops came down and talked to the guy, he hadn't gone
01:18anywhere. He was brazenly just standing exactly where he was when he smacked the phone out of my hand.
01:22He was furious at me. So mad at me for filming him to begin with. He thought I should be
01:29the one in
01:29trouble, having no idea that I'm allowed to film on a public sidewalk. Now, I don't expect everyone to
01:35know the intricacies of where you can and cannot film. I'm a journalist. It's my job. I know them.
01:40What I do expect is the basic kindergarten rule of keep your hands to yourself. What is wild here?
01:46The guy, as you could see, leapt up, smacked the thing out of my hand. It didn't go flying because
01:52I was working. So it's on a handheld tripod, like a selfie stick. So I had it firmly in my
01:57hand
01:57because of that, because he didn't actually touch my person and the phone didn't hit the ground and
02:02crack or break. It's not assault. It's only harassment. Assault would have been an arrest.
02:07Harassment is just a ticket. The cops seemed kind of frustrated. They said it's basically catch and
02:12release. They round up all of these people selling these things. And then by the time
02:16they're arrested, the next day, they are out again doing it one more time. The guys were so mad at
02:22me.
02:22Every single one of them were screaming at me, flipping me off, cursing at me, calling me names.
02:27What? I'm a f***ing b****. I was scared to go on the subway because I would have had to walk
02:34past them
02:34again. And I didn't want to wait there alone around all of them for an Uber. So the cops offered
02:39to drive
02:40me somewhere else while I waited. They only took me a half a block and then pretty much ditched me.
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