I vaguely remember hearing about this a few months ago but apparently it launched a much bigger debate on black Twitter or whatever it’s called now. It began last September when a woman named Roda Osman aka Ro Bashe posted a video claiming she’d been hit with a brick while a group of other men stood around and watched but didn’t react. You can view the clip here.
NBC News published an interview with Osman which was really about the controversy stemming from the video. It seems black men and black women were choosing different sides.
While some Black women online called out the alleged bystanders’ inaction and the decision not to intervene, some Black men in turn resurfaced Osman’s old social media posts, accusing her of a history of inflammatory behavior and untrustworthy character.
With a lack of clarity on what went down, some — women and men alike — called “brickgate” a hoax, comparing Osman to Carlee Russell, a Black woman who was charged with two misdemeanors in July after apologizing for faking her own kidnapping…
NBC News reviewed a police report filed with the Houston Police Department on Sept. 3 and hospital records with results from a physical exam. Records indicate her left ear had blood coming out of the canal and the left side of her face was swollen with bruising and tenderness.
The video does seem to show Osman was injured and NBC confirmed there was a police report, but the story said the whole incident had touched on a sore spot.
“Brickgate” points to a familiar pattern of backlash hurled at Black women when they publicly denounce harm from Black men. And while it appeared to be an isolated act of violence, the back-and-forth from detractors and supporters of Osman represents long-simmering tensions between Black women and men that now play out on social media.
As you can see from this next tweet, the debate got pretty heated.
Black men pulling stuff from a Black woman’s social media they claim show she didn’t “deserve” protection when a Black man smashed her face with a brick for not giving him her number.
Same thing white supremacists do after cops murder Black people to claim they deserved to die.
— Uju Anya (@UjuAnya) September 4, 2023
Clearly, Osman had some support because she posted a GoFundMe which eventually raised $42,000 for her. But that’s where the story took a big turn. Osman is now being charged with fraud for the GoFundMe campaign. Prosecutors found that none of the details she gave to police were accurate.
According to a charging document that the Harris County District Attorney’s Office shared with NBC News, police responded to the incident in September. Osman said she was hit in the face with a brick by an unknown man because she would not share her phone number with him.
Osman also said that she got into a car that she thought was an Uber, and that the driver tried to kidnap her, the report stated. According to the document, she said the driver tried to hit her.
Weeks later, the detective who wrote an affidavit for the district attorney’s office reviewed local surveillance footage of the moments leading up to the incident. In the video, Osman was spotted with a friend, and the man she later identified as the person who hit her. They got into a car together and then exited the car. The detective said the footage showed Osman slapping the man, and then he hit her back, with a water bottle in his hand.
“We think that’s what left the mark on her face,” Keith Houston, from the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, told KPRC, an NBC affiliate in Houston. “But it was mutual combat.”
Mutual combat because she hit him first. Also, it seems there was no brick involved. But the big reveal in this interview with the prosecutor is that Osman has apparently done this before.
Q: Has Osman ever been accused of something like this before?
A: “Yes. Somebody who saw the story contacted the police here and informed them that she had done the exact same thing in Minnesota in 2020,” Houston said.
Q: What do you know about that case?
A: “The only thing I know is that the web page was still up when we did our charging documents. (Detective) verified with Minneapolis police that there was no assault. And at that time, it was completely fictional. And it was her former roommate, I believe that reported it or somebody that she knew reported it,” Houston said.
It’s not clear whether she got money for it last time (Is the page mentioned above another GoFundMe?) but it didn’t work out this time because GoFundMe froze the funds before she could get hold of them. Osman was supposed to turn herself in to authorities for booking today but she never showed up:
Osman had agreed to turn herself in on the charge at 3:45 p.m. Thursday, but when the time came, she didn’t show up.
Community activists Candence Matthews and Quannel X said Osman had reached out to them for help and they had agreed with Osman that she would turn herself in on the charge, but when the time came, Osman didn’t show up. Matthews and Quannel X said this is the first time they had worked with somebody who didn’t show up.
So the skeptics in this case were basically right. It seems Osman is a scam artist who has used this story before. Brickgate was a hoax.