New viral video shows Oakland woman threatening Spanish speakers over parking space

Lesleigh Franklin Lesleigh Franklin Photo: Screenshot Photo: Screenshot Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close New viral video shows Oakland woman threatening Spanish speakers over parking space 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

An Oakland psychologist stepped down from her role as chief executive officer of an East Bay mental health clinic after she was captured on video Aug. 4 claiming to be an immigration attorney and demanding that a group of people speaking Spanish and English move their parked vehicle from the curb in front of her home.

The taped encounter is the latest in a string of viral videos in which Bay Area residents have filmed and shared interactions they consider to be evidence of bigotry or racial profiling.

In the video, posted to Facebook on Wednesday by one of the family members in the car, a white woman tells the group not to park in front of her house. The woman was identified as psychologist Lesleigh Franklin by Franklin’s partner, Marisol Reyna, who spoke with The Chronicle on Thursday.

Reyna said the video and the outrage it spurred online did not reflect Franklin’s true nature. But she said Franklin stepped down from her position as the head and founder of the East Bay Family Institute, an Oakland center that provides mental health services and works with the immigrant community, because “based on the current situation ... it’s not appropriate for someone to run it who’s under so much scrutiny.”

According to the Facebook post by Jordann Cordova, “On Saturday August 4th, my family and I were on our way to a party. So we parked on public parking, in front of the white womans house in this video. This woman began to confront us and began yelling at us without reason.”

Cordova said the woman wanted them to leave.

“As we refused she approached our car and tried to open the doors,” according to the post. “That’s when I began recording because we felt attacked and we know these situations have happened already to black and brown people because of how we look. This woman targeted us AND even questioned our status in this country.”

At one point in the recording, Franklin says she will call the police and then later says she won’t call authorities because “they will take you away.” Franklin acknowledges in the video that she opened their car door in an effort to get the group to leave.

She claims to be an immigration attorney and asks the group where they are from.

One of the men then says he has papers and is a resident and Franklin responds, “A resident isn’t a citizen.”

The video had been viewed more than 100,000 times about 24 hours after it appeared on Facebook, with the number of views escalating rapidly on Thursday evening. Viewers expressed outrage at what they said was yet another racist rant in the progressive Bay Area.

Franklin could not be reached for comment. Reyna said the video doesn’t capture the entire encounter and that Franklin asked the group not to park in front of her house because she wanted to leave the spot open for Reyna, who was coming home from the hospital.

Reyna, who hadn’t viewed the video, said Franklin has issued an apology and felt terrible about the encounter.

“Unfortunately, Dr. Franklin was just diagnosed with an illness (that) impacted her mental state of mind on that particular day,” Reyna said. “But that’s not an excuse.”

Franklin has worked with immigrants, Reyna said, conducting psychological evaluations in the past as part of their immigration cases.

The video, she said, “is not who she is.”

Reyna said Franklin tried to apologize to the group after they went into a nearby home, but no one answered the door.

The video was reminiscent of the video of a white woman who confronted a group of African American people barbecuing near Lake Merritt. Another recent viral video showed a white woman calling police on an 8-year-old African American girl selling water in San Francisco.

“Dr. Franklin doesn’t want to become the barbecue lady at Lake Merritt,” Reyna said.

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker