Hilary Brooke Thornton Mueller tried to keep a Black man out of his home last week in St. Louis. Thornton Mueller’s estranged husband for over a year, who calls himself “a man of color,” no longer lives in the apartment building where the incident occurred.
Brandon Mueller, 46, a COO of a real estate company, released a video on social media expressing his deep disappointment of “that individual” in the video that harassed D’Arreion Toles, 24, at the Elder Shirt Lofts building.
Brandon Mueller Responds To Hilary Brooke Thornton
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Thornton was fired from her job, St. Louis-based luxury apartment brokerage firm Tribeca STL, last week after the video went viral.
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In an interview with local news media, Thornton Mueller calls the claims that she is racist “false and heartbreaking.”
“Those are words that cut deep,” she said.
She explained that her condo association told her if she saw a stranger to not let them into the building. She was “uncomfortable” with Toles.
Do they have a rule about holding a security door open to let your dog pee, instead of walking outside of the secure door, letting it close so the building stays secure and then opening it up to return to your unit If so, she might have avoided this whole incident. But she seems to follow only certain rules.
Mueller said that he’s spent his career teaching people about the importance of diversity.
“My only hope is that we, as a community, can use this as an opportunity to do what my father taught me many years ago: to not allow others’ ignorance to incite anger and hatred, but to use it as an opportunity to learn, grow and promote love.”
Thornton Mueller said, “I simply asked if he lived there,” and of her questioning of Toles’ key fob whereabouts: “It’s the only indicator any resident has that they live in the building and he wouldn’t answer me,” she said. “He would not show me one.”
She also said Toles forced his way in after an altercation. After she followed Toles to his door and saw him use keys, she then said in the Facebook video that she wanted to get to know her neighbor, Toles.
Thornton Mueller said, “I do not think I did anything wrong.”
