EXCLUSIVE: Black health care worker who filmed viral video of white socialite calling 911 on her asks, ‘Why does this keep happening?'

A black health care worker says she was sitting just steps from her luxury building on the Upper West Side Friday when a “privileged” and pregnant white woman was caught on viral video accosting her and repeatedly calling 911.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily News, Jana’e Brown said she was tired from her long hours working at a local hospital and had walked outside to bask in the nightly applause for personnel on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic when the ugly encounter unfolded.
That’s when 34-year-old socialite Svitlana Flom, a style blogger and Hamptons restaurant owner, accused her of smoking pot, refused to drop the matter and called police multiple times, according to Brown.
“I didn’t know who she was,” Brown, 30, said. “She’s just a random person, telling me I can’t sit here, telling me I can’t be here.”
During her emotional first visit back to the park at Waterline Square on W. 59th St., Brown said the confrontation felt like a repeat of what happened to black bird-watcher Christian Cooper on May 25 in Central Park.
In that confrontation, white woman Amy Cooper called 911 and said “an African-American man” was threatening her and her dog in the Ramble. In reality, all Cooper did was ask her to leash her dog before he tried to call the dog back to a paved path, he said.
Like Cooper, Brown recorded her own encounter once it turned ugly. She posted several excerpts to her Instagram account and the recordings quickly went viral.
“For me it’s like, ‘Why do you feel like you’re so privileged to tell me anything?' ” Brown told The News of her interaction with Flom.
“What if the cops come and feel alarmed?” she asked, touching on the nation’s growing reckoning with police brutality disproportionately affecting black people.
“Why does this keep happening over and over?” she said, fighting back tears while standing near the wood and concrete bench where the confrontation first went down. “I just don’t understand it.”
In the videos Brown posted on Instagram, Flom is seen pleading with a 911 operator to send someone to the scene.
“It’s impossible. She’s playing the black card and just, like, it’s horrible,” Flom says at one point, claiming Brown was “attacking” her.
“She was calling me a b---h. She came up ... threatening me and my kids," Flom tells the 911 operator, the video shows. “I’m sitting here shaking and breathless."
It soon emerges that Flom wants police to force Brown to delete the encounter from her phone.
“I want this video to be gone,” Flom, who is from the Ukraine, tells the operator.
When police arrived on the scene, they took no action.
Brown said she didn’t just get up and leave during the protracted encounter because she did nothing wrong.
“That’s why I stayed. Because I needed the cops to see,” she told The News, her voice breaking down.
She recalled telling the responding officer, “If you want to search me, you can. Because I don’t have anything.”
“Some people think they’re more privileged because of the color of their skin or their economic status or whatever," Brown told The News. “But that’s not how I am.”
Food Blooger Svitlana Flom poses during Jaguar Land Rover Manhattan Presents The Opening Of The Metropolitan Opera's "Tristan Und Isolde" at The Metropolitan Opera House on September 26, 2016 in New York City.
Food Blooger Svitlana Flom poses during Jaguar Land Rover Manhattan Presents The Opening Of The Metropolitan Opera's "Tristan Und Isolde" at The Metropolitan Opera House on September 26, 2016 in New York City. (Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images)
Flom, who is nine months pregnant, broke down in tears as she recalled her side of the encounter in an interview with The News.
“I want this nightmare to end … and for her to stop making up stories about me,” said Flom, who lives with her family in a $3.7 million condo.
“She was harassing me, calling me all kinds of names and profiling me. She was playing me. Like I’m another white racist woman, a ‘Karen’ who came over to her and started everything.”
Flom, who also lives near the small park, says she was out for some fresh air with her two young daughters when she demanded Brown stop smoking pot. She says Brown responded indignantly, getting up in her face and making threats.
The NYPD says Flom called police again at 8:40 p.m. Saturday, after the video went viral and sparked outrage, to report receiving “threatening text messages from unknown numbers."
The officers again left without taking further action.
Flom says she is living in fear now that her personal information is out there for the world to see.
“People are calling me threatening me, saying my kids should die,” Flom sobbed from a hospital bed where she was undergoing tests on her unborn baby. “I can’t go home because I’m in danger.”
In one of the clips posted by Brown, Flom’s husband, Gary Flom, is seen walking away from his wife’s confrontation. The prominent businessman once owned a Manhattan Jaguar dealership.
Brown told The News that after her post went viral, she received a message from Jaguar USA saying Gary Flom is not affiliated with them and they don’t condone racist actions. In a statement, a Jaguar spokesman said Flom has not had any association with the company since 2017.
The Floms have been a staple at high-end social affairs over the years and were once photographed with ex-New York Knicks star Amare Stoudemire at an event.
Svitlana Flom is co-owner of Maison Vivienne, a restaurant in the Hamptons “inspired by the south of France.” A location on the Upper East Side shut down some time ago.
She also runs artdefete.com, an upscale lifestyle blog that has been taken down.
Jana'e Brown is pictured Tuesday, June 2.
Jana'e Brown is pictured Tuesday, June 2. (Catherina Gioino/for New York Daily News)
Brown said she doesn’t regret standing up to Flom.

“You just gotta always stand in your truth,” she said. “You can’t lose your cool, you can’t lose character because that’s what they want.”
Jana'e Brown is pictured Tuesday, June 2, at the location where the incident happened.
Jana'e Brown is pictured Tuesday, June 2, at the location where the incident happened. (Catherina Gioino/for New York Daily News)
“I was the victim because I was harassed. I feel like I want to press charges,” she said Tuesday, shortly before she hired legal counsel in the matter.
“She wanted to prove her point, I’m going to prove mine,” Brown added. “Something has to be done, like she has to come forward and apologize publicly.”
Former President and CEO of Jaguar Land Rover Manhattan, Gary Flom and Svitlana Flom pose during Jaguar Land Rover Manhattan Presents The Opening Of The Metropolitan Opera's "Tristan Und Isolde" at The Metropolitan Opera House on September 26, 2016 in New York City.
Former President and CEO of Jaguar Land Rover Manhattan, Gary Flom and Svitlana Flom pose during Jaguar Land Rover Manhattan Presents The Opening Of The Metropolitan Opera's "Tristan Und Isolde" at The Metropolitan Opera House on September 26, 2016 in New York City. (Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images)
Brown, who crochets hats, scarves and blankets for premature babies and needy people in her spare time, said she hopes Flom will grow from the encounter.
“I hope she learns a lesson, to treat people the same,” she said. “Because we are all the same.”

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