A dispute between two women over an unleashed dog on the west side of Los Angeles took on racist tones when the woman whose dog was off leash told her Asian neighbor to “go back to China,” according to a TikTok video that has already generated more of 6 million visits.
The white woman with the unleashed dog, Denise Olin, was caught on video making racially charged comments during the Feb. 24 fight with her neighbor after the other woman, who was walking a dog on a leash, asked Olin Put a leash on your dog. . Los Angeles laws require dogs to be leashed on public property and privately owned common areas.
Olin has since told The Times that he regrets his comments.
The two women, who appear to have a history of conflict, began recording themselves during the encounter.
“Let me fill you in,” says the woman recording the video, identified through her TikTok account only as Cindy.
“Let me educate you, go back to China,” says Olin, who is also recording the incident on his phone.
“I don't want your dog to get hurt,” Cindy says.
When Cindy calls Olin “Karen,” Olin responds, “You're an Asian Karen.”
At another point in the interaction, Olin repeatedly asks Cindy if she understands English.
Olin claims in the video that Cindy once referred to her as a “bitch” and that the woman is the “most hated woman on our block.” She also said the woman told Olin to return to her country. Olin is Irish.
Cindy denies the claim and says Olin made up the story.
“Everyone hates you,” Olin says.
The incident took place on Butler Avenue in the upscale Sawtelle neighborhood.
Olin apologized for his words Thursday in a text message to the Times and said he had received death threats since the video was posted on TikTok on Monday.
“I'm devastated and getting so many death threats,” Olin texted. “The police are involved. I'm very sorry for what I said. I reacted badly. It was our second altercation and she had said similar things to me. She hadn't filmed it. There was no excuse for what I said. I'm so sorry. “I'm not racist, I'm just stupid.”
Olin shared with The Times a voicemail he had received in which someone said he would have been shot in the face if he had made those comments to them.
Cindy's video has 6.8 million views on TikTok. She could not immediately be reached.
“I'm Asian, but I'm not from China,” Cindy wrote in her TikTok post. “I am an immigrant, but my family and I have lived in the United States for more than 20 years. This is our house. It hurts me deeply that there are still people making such racist comments.”
The video recalls a similar incident in New York in 2020 in which a woman called the police on a Black man in Central Park after he asked her to put his dog on a leash.
The woman, Amy Cooper, lost her job as a result of that viral video.
“More than three years later, I am still hiding. “I’m afraid to be in public,” Cooper wrote in an op-ed late last year.
