Chika Okafor, a producer for Bleacher Report, posted about the encounter online, where it's been viewed more than a million times.
"You don't live here."
Video shows a New York man, dubbed "Hallway Harry," harassing two black men last Wednesday about whether they live in his Upper East Side apartment building.
“What are you doing in my building? You don’t live here,” the man asks.
"He lives right upstairs," answers one of the black men, gesturing to his friend, Chika Okafor, a producer for Bleacher Report.
"How do you live here? What apartment do you live in?" Harry says.
"It's none of your business," Okafor answers.
"It is my business," Harry counters.
"Why is it your business?" Okafor asks. "Do you own this building?"
"I've lived here for 27 years," Harry replies.
Okafor posted about the encounter online, where it's been viewed more than a million times.
"As you can see, he thought that he was entitled to know who I was and where I lived simply because, according to him, he lived there for 27 years," he wrote on Twitter.
"The arrogance is appalling but honestly, not surprising because far too many times people of color have been victims of this kind of behavior," Okafor added.
Okafor apparently wasn't alone in his encounter with Harry. After his video went viral, a white woman posted that she and her husband, who's also white, had been harassed by Harry as well.
Janah Reynolds said she was staying in an Airbnb in the building when Harry approached her the same night Okafor's video was shot. She too recorded her encounter.
"Get out of my building," says Harry. "You don't have an ID to get in this building. You don't live here."
Reynolds, who shared video of the encounter on Okafor's Facebook post, said she called police repeatedly but they never came. The man, she said, eventually relented and let her in.
Okafor told the New York Times he tried to report the incident to the building manager, who he said advised him to call police as she could not handle personal matters. Okafor said he doesn't want to pursue legal action but expects an apology from the man and believes he should be evicted.
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