Woman who refused to let black neighbor into building fired

ST. LOUIS (AP) - A white woman who refused to allow a black neighbor into their downtown St. Louis apartment building because he wouldn't show her proof that he lived there has been fired.

D'Arreion Toles, 24, whose Facebook page says he attended College of DuPage and lived in Roselle, began filming as the woman, identified by The New York Times as Hilary Brooke Mueller, repeatedly asked whether he lived in the building. A video Toles posted on Facebook shows her following him into the elevator and to the door of his unit in the Elder Shirt Lofts.

Toles said in a statement emailed from attorney Chelsea Merta on Monday night that he was "accosted, harassed and stalked" by the woman, who "got in my face, demanded to see my key fob, and proceeded to berate me and harass me for merely trying to go home after a long day of work," according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Thirty minutes later, St. Louis officers knocked on his door. Toles' emailed statement says the woman claimed he had "choked and assaulted her" during their encounter, which Toles said is "as far from the truth as possible," the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Toles said police "treated me like a criminal until they viewed the video recording that I made."

St. Louis police confirmed to the Post-Dispatch there was a 911 call to the building at 12:18 a.m. Saturday from a caller who was unsure if a man in the building was a tenant.

Toles did not respond to the Daily Herald's request for comment.

Although the video doesn't show either Toles or the woman mention race, Toles says in another video that it's "obvious" that what happened was a "race thing" and that the woman didn't "feel like I belong there." Mueller doesn't have a listed phone number.

Her employer, property management company Tribeca-STL, said it found the interaction "disturbing" and it won't "stand for racism or racial profiling." It also stressed that it doesn't manage Elder Shirt Lofts.