Woman calls police on Black man over patio permit

It must be a mental disorder. Let’s call it “Karen Derangement Syndrome” or KDS for short.

Picking up a semi-automatic when a mob has broken into your property is one thing. At least you are on your own turf so there’s definitely a case that it’s not full on KDS.

But pro-actively engaging with and antagonizing others at their home is another thing entirely.

Then, when someone whips out a cellphone and starts filming, you would think a voice of commonsense would kick in: “nah, this just isn’t worth it. Walk away.”

But those suffering KDS – who are disproportionately, although not exclusively, middle-aged women of a broadly Caucasian persuasion – never do!

Certainly, a New Jersey woman may well be now ruing her own attack of KDS.

Susan G. Schulz may not garner the nationwide infamy accorded to the McCloskeys of St. Louis who last weekend confronted with their guns people who they say were armed trespassers.

Nonetheless, Schulz, of Montclair, is well on her way to being a whole lot more famous than she ever bargained for.

The upscale suburb near New York City, famous for its liberal, cultured and tolerant denizens may now be a lot more intolerant of her.

A Facebook video shows a woman, later identified as Schulz, pacing back and forth in the street and arguing with several people as she calls police on her phone. She’s asked to leave the scene multiple times but refuses.

In a caption to the video, the poster dubs the woman “Permit Karen” and accuses her of calling police on him because he’s Black. He alleges that the incident started over a dispute about whether he had the proper permit to build a stone patio in his backyard.

According to the poster, Fareed Nassor Hayat, Schulz came to his family’s property three times in just thirty minutes to demand an answer as to whether Hayat and his wife had acquired the permit.

Hayat said that he did not need a permit for the patio and informed Schulz of this, whereupon things went south and chronic KDS kicked in.

“When challenged about her flawed legal conclusions, assumption of right, her lack of agency over our home and our eventual demand that she leave our property immediately, Susan decided to call the police and make a false report of assault,” Hayat wrote.

On Tuesday, about two dozen young people wearing face masks– many of them white – gathered on Marion Road to denounce racism. An onlooker who filmed the rally said it was “peaceful and respectful, only going back and forth on the small street.”

Montclair Police said that the incident was a dispute between neighbors and they would not be taking any further action.