The owner of a downtown Portland food cart has been arrested for allegedly assaulting a customer this afternoon. Islam El Masry was working at his halal cart, Small Pharoah’s, this afternoon when regular customer Carlotta Washington stopped by. According to witnesses, El Masry proceeded to call Carlotta Washington the n-word, splashed hot sauce in her face, and threw a Gatorade bottle at her. In an interview with Willamette Week, Washington said El Masry was upset because she had tried to purchase her food using all quarters.
Washington took a video of the tail-end of the encounter.
“It was not appropriate, it was much too aggressive,” said a witness who requested the Mercury kept them anonymous. The witness did not believe it was a race-related assault. Small Pharoah’s Yelp reviews document similar verbal abuse from the food cart’s staff (but we’re well aware Yelp reviews aren’t the most trustworthy.)
El Masry was booked into the Multnomah County Jail at 4:30 pm for harassment and assault—with a combined $4,000 bail. He has since been released on his own recognizance.
I have a feeling there is a lot more that led up to this beyond simply trying to pay with quarters.
But since a 20 second video showing the end of a confrontation makes this guy look like a nut, you knew the media will feature it for its sensational aspects alone. Don’t get me wrong, this guy was way out of line and deserved to be booked for what he did, but for a relatively minor incident, the media coverage and reaction is over the top.
In the meantime, we are so obsessed with these little micro aggression stories that we are letting a maniac literally dismantle the checks and balances in our government while running the country into the ground for his own personal gain.
@Frogger. I wouldn’t call this a microaggression. Calling someone a racial slur and throwing things at them is NOT a microaggression. smh. That 20-second video is all we need b/ca no words she could have spoken warranted being physically assaulted and verbally berated in that manner. It was not a minor thing for the victim. We can’t be dismissive towards what other people have experienced because we, did not experience that particular moment ourselves.
@ ‘Mikimii – That 20 second video is all we need…
Well, not so fast:
Another witness said “I don’t think I saw the beginning. I saw it when it was heated,” Sean told KOIN 6 News. “The lady initiated what I saw. She was asked to leave and wouldn’t.”
Sean said he started to hear a lot of yelling.
“He was definitely not initially hot-headed. It was mostly her who was instigating and initiating,” Sean said. “It started with her bad mouthing him and using every slur about an Arabic person multiple times. A switch flipped on him and he said some things that he shouldn’t have said right back.”
Sean said El Masry used racial slurs as well, but Washington did first.
An employee of the food cart previously told KOIN El Masry claimed Washington threw a bottle at him first, which she denied.
“I shoved the bottles that were in the window,” Washington said Thursday. “I shoved them back at him but I didn’t pick anything up and throw it back at him.”
But Sean said he saw Washington throw one of the bottles at El Masry before she started filming the incident.