Did Black Lives Matter have anything to do with a woman seen on video ruining a Hispanic child's birthday party? No, that's not true. Video of a woman flipping a table in anger at her neighbor's party for a 3-year-old shows nothing more than neighbors in dispute. Soany Barella, the mother of the little girl having the birthday, told Lead Stories the incident had "nothing to do with" Black Lives Matter.
The claim appeared as a post (archived here) published by Infodemik on Facebook on October 5, 2020. It opened:
BLM destroy Hispanic child's birthday party 😡 Houston, TX
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Oct 8 21:49:00 2020 UTC)
The video originally posted did not link the aggressive woman to Black Lives Matter nor did the family holding the birthday party claim in news reports or on social media posts that the woman was a Black Lives Matter supporter or protester. Videos that have posted since the incident have labeled the fight as "BLM destroy Hispanic child's birthday party."
A video was posted to social media showing a woman in what appears to be the courtyard of an apartment complex throwing a table and then telling people who are seated to "move your stuff." When they refuse she grabs a second table and tosses it across the courtyard. A second woman throws two chairs from the table in the video as well.
Social media posts claimed "BLM destroys Hispanic child's birthday party."
Barella, the mother of the 3-year-old girl, told Lead Stories via phone on October 8, 2020, that the incident on October 3, 2020, was not related to the Black Lives Matter movement.
"No, that has nothing to do with that," she said. "It was about what they did in the party. I wasn't even going to share the video. I was trying to do this private. I never thought it would go viral. It's not about that at all."
The video of the incident, shot by one of the people attending the party, went viral after it was posted to social media. Barella described the situation to the local Houston NBC Station, claiming she had set up for the party in the communal courtyard area earlier in the afternoon and didn't hear complaints from the neighbor until after the party had started. She said the neighbor claimed the music was too loud so she turned it down.
"She started breaking the tables, the chairs and everything," Barella said,
"The girl, she came at me and she was telling me to move the tables because she said they were close to her apartment and she did not want the tables close to her house," Barella said.
The Houston Police Department told Lead Stories the case was still under investigation by the Westside Patrol Division. The two women in the video have not been named by authorities.
