Monica Kenyon, Sonia Ulrich and Marla Saltzer helped save a woman from being drugged by her date at a Santa Monica restaurant. 
 
 Three Los Angeles-area women are being credited with saving a young woman they didn't know from being drugged by a date at a Santa Monica restaurant.Sonia Ulrich, Marla Saltzer and Monica Kenyon detailed their story on Facebook on Friday - with a meme in "Charlie's Angels" style poses, declaring "Don't roofie someone on our watch!" The post has already been shared more than 70,000 times.The three were at the Fig restaurant at the Fairmont Miramar hotel for happy hour on Thursday.As they were eating, drinking and having a good time, Kenyon's attention was drawn to a nearby table where two people appeared to be on a date. The young woman had excused herself to go to the bathroom.Kenyon said she could see the man fumbling with his date's glass at the table and reaching for something."I just stared at him and watched something fall from his hand into the glass below," she recalled in an interview with ABC7 Eyewitness News.The other women noticed Kenyon get a funny look on her face as she watched the apparent drugging unfold in front of her eyes."I said, I just saw that guy put something in her drink. We're all like, what do we do?" Kenyon said.Ulrich went to the bathroom to find the girl and warn her."I found her in there and I just said 'Hey I know this is weird, but we saw that guy you're with put something in your drink'."Ulrich asked her how well she knew the man."She said 'Oh my God. .... He's one of my best friends'."The two had worked together for more than a year, the woman told Ulrich.The woman on the date returned to the table and tried to act as if nothing had happened.In the meantime, the three women alerted the restaurant manager, who talked to security. They checked the video and confirmed the women's story.Soon, Santa Monica police had arrived and took the man away.The Santa Monica Police Department later confirmed that the man had been arrested with multiple vials of a clear substance on him that has not yet been identified.For the three women, besides being able to save the young woman, they said the reaction from people online, as well as that night at the restaurant, has been gratifying."The crazy thing, though, afterwards, is people from all over the dining room were coming over and thanking us," Ulrich said. "And they all had stories of it happened to them or their sister or their roommate.""That was the really amazing thing - how many people sincerely thanked us because they had a personal experience with this type of thing." ||||| An epic tale of three women who happened to witness a stranger attempt to drug another stranger begins with, “GUESS WHO STOPPED A RAPE LAST NIGHT?! THESE GALS!” 
 
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 The incident allegedly took place at Santa Monica’s FIG restaurant on Thursday. When I called FIG to corroborate a viral Facebook post, the woman who answered said firmly that yes, it was all true, before putting me on hold. When she came back on she said she was not at liberty to discuss what I assume is still a pending investigation. So let’s take the story as it is told on social media by a woman named Sonia Ulrich. 
 
 Monica, Marla, and I were at Fig at the Fairmont for their delicious happy hour (“Fig at 5.” Treat yourself). I was going on about something and saw Monica staring behind and making a funny face. I stopped. “What’s going on?” After a few second she said “That guy just put something in her drink.” 
 
 The ladies discussed the best course of action and decided to warn this strange woman that not all was as it should be with her date. Sonia lingered in the bathroom waiting for her until she left her stall: 
 
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 “Hey! Um, this is kind of weird, but, uh, we saw the guy you were with put something in your drink.” “Oh My God.” She said. Shocked, kind of numb, so I babbled “Yeah, my girlfriend said she saw him put something in your drink and we had to say something. Woman to woman...you know. We had to say something. How well do you know that guy?” I was expecting to hear “We just met,” but I got: “He’s one of my best friends.” 
 
 The girl returned to her table, which is a measure of steeliness I don’t think I’d be capable of. My impulse would be to rush back and insist he drink my glass of wine and basically reenact the final scene of Hamlet. Meanwhile, Marla was speaking with a server, who notified the manager. Monica described more about what she’d seen to her friends: 
 
 “He pulled her glass toward him, kind of awkwardly, then he took out a little black vial. He opened it up and dropped something in. Then he tried to play it cool, like checking his phone and hiding the vial in his hand and then trying to bring it back down slyly.” He apparently saw Monica looking. Marla said she was just going to lean over to Monica and say “that guy is acting really creepy” when she saw Monica already looking. Witnessing. 
 
 It only took a minute for the manager to walk to their table, see if everything was ok, allowed the girl to order a sparkling water. All super cool. He stopped by our table and said he couldn’t do much because he didn’t see it. But he did let security know. The poor woman had to sit through 40 more minutes, sitting across from “one of her best friends” knowing that he was trying to drug her. Marla noticed him several times chinking his glass to hers to get her to drink. She played it cool. Mostly, I believed, just stunned. The staff wanted to jump in and dump the glass, dump him, do something! I was going through fantasies of walking up and demanding he drink the tainted glass of wine. Eventually, they finished up dinner. There was a delay getting their bill “The computer is down” is what the waiter kept saying to him. Then, in walks Santa Monica PD. They say “Come with us” and he doesn’t protest. Doesn’t ask why. Doesn’t seem surprised. 
 
 Because of the ladies’ quick response and the restaurant’s belief and support, they were able to immediately review the tapes and catch the man putting an unknown substance in his “friend’s” wine glass. It turned out her car was parked in his apartment building and they’d driven in his vehicle to the restaurant, adding an even more chilling detail to this premeditated attack. 
 
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 Sonia Ulrich winds up her long post with gratitude to the FIG, and by saying that after the man was led away by police, other customers approached the women to tell their own stories of similar incidents where no one was there to look out: 
 
 “It happened to my sister...I’m glad I was there to take her home.” “It happened to my roommate at a producer’s party. He’s still messed up from it.” “It happened to me. At a backyard barbecue.” “It happened to me. At a bar I worked at.” “Some Heroes don’t wear capes. Thank you. It happened to me. Thank you.” So thank you, everyone at Fig and Fairmont in Santa Monica for keeping this guy from harming someone. And thank you in advance to everyone who sees this and shares this and reminds each other that yes, you SHOULD say something. Even if it’s awkward or weird or just uncertain if anything can be done. Know that YOU did something. And that it helped. 
 
 I could also tell a story like this. Thanks for saying something, gals. 
 
 
 
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 Image via Facebook. ||||| A woman seen in a viral video calling the police on a group of black people who were barbecuing at an Oakland park has been identified as a Stanford University-educated environmental scientist. Jennifer Schulte, who has become known on social media as “BBQ Becky,” was identified by The Root and News One, and widely on social media. Schulte, 41, could not be reached for comment about the video by Heavy and has not spoken out about the incident. 
 
 The video was posted on YouTube by Michelle Snider on April 29 just hours after the incident. The story went viral after Snider and her husband, Kenzie Smith, talked to KRON-TV on May 9. The incident occurred amid a string of viral incidents in which white people called the police on people of color for controversial reasons, including a white Starbucks manager who called the police on two men who were waiting for a business meeting, a white woman who called the police on a group of black people staying at an AirBnB, a white mother who reported two Native American teens to police because she didn’t think they belonged on a college tour and a white Ph.D student who called the police on a Yale University grad student who was napping in a dorm common room while studying for finals. The incident has also drawn comparisons to a viral video of a Manhattan lawyer ranting about restaurant workers speaking Spanish. 
 
 Here’s what you need to know about Jennifer Schulte and the incident: 
 
 1. Schulte Was Evaluated for an Involuntary Psychiatric Hold by Police 
 
 The nearly 25-minutelong video of the incident was posted on YouTube on April 29 by Michelle Snider, who uses the handle Michelle Dionne on YouTube. The video begins after a confrontation had already been ongoing between the woman identified as Jennifer Schulte and Snider’s family and friends. “At around 11:20 AM a white woman approached a black man named Deacon for having a BBQ grill at Lake Merritt today. 
 
 She told him he could not BBQ there and called the police. She would not leave Deacon alone. A young black woman was walking by overheard how the white woman was harassing him telling him he can not be there, she stopped and asked the woman to leave her alone. The white woman became aggressive with the woman,” Snider wrote on YouTube. “Shortly after that Deacon’s friend Kenzie arrived. According to Kenzie, the woman said ‘Oh another n*gger.’ She proceeded to tell all three of the people at the BBQ table that she owned the park, and they are not allowed there. She also said them they were going to jail.” The racist comment allegedly made by the woman was not caught on video. 
 
 Snider, who is Smith’s wife, said her husband texted her a picture of the woman and said, “If I go to jail this is who did it to me.” Snider, who was at a nearby restaurant, then walked over to the park and arrived about 12:50 p.m., which is when the video begins. The video shows the interaction between Snider, her husband and others with the woman identified as Schulte. Snider follows the woman as she continues to call police to try to get them to respond to the park. When the officer eventually does arrive, the woman begins to cry as she talks to him, as the video ends. 
 
 “This is exactly what is the problem with Oakland today. This lady wants to sit here and call the police on them for having a barbecue at the lake as if this is not normal,” Michelle Snider told KRON-TV. Snider said the woman told them it was illegal to have a charcoal barbecue in the area where they were having their cookout. According to KRON, an Oakland Parks and Recreation map shows that the area is not a designated charcoal area, but is an area where portable non-charcoal grills can be used. Lake Merritt has three areas with stationary charcoal grills for public use, according to the map. But residents and officials told the news station that the rule is not typically followed or enforced, and is not a police matter. 
 
 “I have seen people barbecue with charcoal for years,” Kenzie Smith told the news station. “She said that we were trespassing, we were not welcome, and then she turned back around and said, ‘ya’ll going to jail.’ I think we need to question the policies that made this woman think woman feel she had the right to harass people.” 
 
 Oakland City Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney told the news station, “I think it is really incumbent on all of us that when we call police, it is for emergency purposes.” She suggested there were other options than calling the police, telling the news station, “I want to encourage people to know when to call the police, when to raise a question of regulations with the city council, maybe there is a passive way to reach out to us. 
 
 Oakland Police said responding officers took a police report, but no citations were issued and no arrests were made. 
 
 On May 24, police released a log that reveals more details about the call. The officer told dispatchers he evaluated Schulte for a 5150 psychiatric hold, but determined that she “didn’t fit the criteria,” according to the report obtained by KTVU-TV. 
 
 “A 5150 in California allows a police officer or another professional to take a person into custody for up to 72 hours to evaluate their mental state and whether they are a danger to themselves or to others,” KTVU reports. 
 
 The incident took about 3 hours, with Schulte on the phone with police nearly the entire time, records show. At one point, the dispatcher told responding officers Schulte, “sounds 5150.” 
 
 2. ‘BBQ Becky’ Memes Have Spread Across Social Media 
 
 In the days after the video went viral, the woman has become a meme on social media known as “BBQ Becky.” According to Know Your Meme, “BBQ Becky, also known as White Woman Calling the Cops, refers to a series of Photoshop memes of a woman in sunglasses calling the police in a park on a group of African American people having a cookout in an Oakland, Ca park. The image has been edited into photographs of the civil rights milestones as well as captions that mock the woman for calling the police.” Becky is a n You can see some of the memes below: 
 
 @jemelehill now we know who really got Rosa Parks in trouble pic.twitter.com/uwYDPNU45E — Squatty Bell (@Squatty386) May 13, 2018 
 
 Black Twitter Meme Council, I respectful propose that 'Black Man on Phone' be replaced with 'White Lady Spoils BBQ'. pic.twitter.com/H9dRKT2PGe — Roy Wood Jr- Ex Jedi (@roywoodjr) May 11, 2018 
 
 "Hi, I'd like to report a graduation." pic.twitter.com/V2EiKOvNQ5 — Tim Barnes (@TimBarnes451) May 12, 2018 
 
 The woman who posted the original video tweeted one of the memes: 
 
 I knew this woman would turn into a meme 🤦🏻‍♀️😹 pic.twitter.com/uxN6ZXrmaB — Michelle Dione 🐈 (@ShelleDione) May 10, 2018 
 
 “Beyond the ‘Cookout Beckie’ aka ‘BBQBeckie’ memes and jokes, the reason why this story resonates so much in the Black community is that there is a pattern of people, white people, calling the police on Black people, which often ends up being scary at the very least, or deadly. Even cops have complained that white people waste their time with irrational fear of Black people, imagine that!” AfroPunk writes. “So this isn’t just about ‘Cookout Beckie’. This is a pattern. And this isn’t about conservatives vs. liberals either. As we’ve often reported (and so did Martin Luther King Jr. before us), white liberals are just as problematic as conservatives.” 
 
 Otis Taylor Jr. wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle, “The first time I saw the video of a white woman on the phone with police because two black men were using a charcoal grill at Lake Merritt, I thought it was a parody, a provocative satire on race in America. But, no, this is America, a country where a black person must be prepared for the possibility that police might be called to investigate and indict their blackness.” 
 
 3. Schulte Has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering From Stanford, but the University Says She Does Not Work There, Disputing Reports That She Is a Professor 
 
 The 41-year-old Jennifer Schulte, whose name has been in some reports misspelled Jennifer Shulte, graduated from Stanford University in 2006 with a Ph.D in chemical engineering, according to her now-deleted Linkedin profile. That detail and her use of the name Dr. Jennifer Schulte on social media has led some to believe she is a professor or otherwise employed by Stanford. 
 
 But the California university distanced itself from her on Twitter, writing, “According to our records, a person by this name earned graduate degrees at Stanford more than a decade ago. She is not employed as staff or as a faculty member.” An entry on a Stanford website shows that she was part of the James Swartz Research Group in the chemical engineering and bioengineering department. 
 
 Schulte is a North Dakota native and attended the University of North Dakota for her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering. She has lived in Oakland since 2006. 
 
 4. She Works as an Air Quality & Climate Change Specialist 
 
 Schulte works as a senior project manager at an environmental resources and services company in Oakland, according to her Linkedin profile. Her work focuses on air quality. She is also a climate change technical specialist. She previously worked at Horizon Water and Environment, URS Corporation and Environ International Corporation. 
 
 An announcement for a 2016 meeting of the American Petroleum Institute shows that Schulte gave a talk titled “OEHHA Revised Risk Assessment Methods: Developing a Facility Game Plan” for the organization. “Dr. Jennifer Schulte is a Senior Project Manager with ERM based in Walnut Creek, California. She has 10 years of experience as an air quality and climate change specialist, and is a recognized expert in the fields of air quality, emission estimation, air dispersion modeling, health risk assessments, and climate change impacts,” the website said. “Dr. Schulte has conducted complex projects throughout California, the United States, and some international locations involving air emission inventories, air dispersion modeling, health risk assessments, and climate change analyses for numerous clients including commercial and residential development projects, ports, transportation, refineries, and various other industrial areas. She conducts air quality and climate change analyses for regulatory compliance, environmental studies required for CEQA and NEPA, and litigation support.” 
 
 The Irvine, California, city website shows that she was part of a team that prepared a supplemental environmental impact report as part of a city project. 
 
 5. Oakland Residents Held a Large Cookout & Spoke Out About It at a City Hall Meeting 
 
 How Black Oakland responds to a white lady calling the cops on Black folks BBQing… pic.twitter.com/kRdJpnmXQ2 — Brotha B (@BlakeDontCrack) May 11, 2018 
 
 Oakland residents responded to the viral video by holding a large cookout in the area where the incident occurred. A huge crowd showed up for the barbecue at Lake Merritt on May 10. “This how we feel about mad a** Oakland gentrifiers,” Michael Swanson Jr. said in a video from the party. 
 
 Residents also spoke out at a recent city council meeting: 
 
 “The assault on black life is not an isolated set of circumstances,” activist Carroll Fife told the council, according to Mother Jones. “The recent emergency phone call from Jennifer S”—the name of a woman identified on Twitter as the caller, but whose identity remains unconfirmed—”a white woman angered by an African American family barbecuing in an unauthorized location at Lake Merritt, highlights how anti-black racism is used in a way to control black bodies and used in a way to control space.” 
 
 She added, “We don’t want any more apologies. We don’t want any more business cards. We don’t want any more forums. What we want is you all to take note and take account.” 
 
 City Councilmember Lynette Gibson McElhaney told HuffPost, “In a city that needs significant policing services, we can’t have those precious expensive resources squandered in a frivolous way. Police are not private security for any white person that’s offended by the presence of black folks in our public spaces.” ||||| LONG BEACH (CBSLA.com) — A second woman has come forward to tell the tale of a romantic date gone wrong when the man she met on social media dined, dashed and stiffed her with bill. 
 
 KCAL9’s Andrea Fujii on Thursday talked to the woman who didn’t want to be identified. 
 
 She had no problem identifying her date — Paul Gonzales. She said they met on a dating website in May. 
 
 The plan was a romantic first date at a restaurant in Long Beach. 
 
 “[He was] very complimentary, very chatty, seemed to have similar interests,” she said. 
 
 The woman said things got weird when he ordered over $100 worth of food for himself. 
 
 “This guy is obnoxious,” she thought. “First of all, who orders two entrees? But he excused it by saying he was a bodybuilder.” 
 
 She said when she didn’t reciprocate his advances, he took off and left her holding the check. 
 
 “He says ‘I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll be right back’ and he never did,” she said. 
 
 The woman acknowledges she is very embarrassed but said she came forward after seeing another women tell her similar story on Wednesday evening on the KCAL9 News at 10 p.m. 
 
 “He had an appetizer, he ordered a steak. This restaurant is all ala carte,” said Diane Guilmette. 
 
 Police said the alleged dine-and-dasher also did the same thing to a Burbank hair salon in February. 
 
 RELATED LINK: Police Look For Man Who Allegedly Committed ‘Snip And Ditch’ At Hair Salon 
 
 Security video allegedly caught Gonzales walking out of the salon still wearing his smock. 
 
 Police told Fujii he was arrested on July 23 in that incident but it’s not clear if he’s still behind bars. The LA County DA’s Office says they have two pending petty-theft cases against him. 
 
 The women he dashed out on in May said she didn’t file a police report but now says she will. 
 
 “So, now is my retribution time,” she said. 
 
 Fujii reports that since our story aired Wednesday evening, she also heard from another Burbank hair salon that said Gonzales skipped out on his bill. 
 
 She said she tried reaching out to Gonzales via Facebook, but as of Thursday had not heard back.
– Three women dining out in Santa Monica, Calif., Thursday night apparently spotted a guy slip his table-mate a "roofie"-style drug—and rushed to prevent the woman from being raped, Jezebel reports. As Sonia Ulrich writes on Facebook, she and her friends Monica Kenyon and Marla Saltzer were enjoying happy hour at FIG restaurant when Kenyon saw the guy pull out a small black vial, hide it under his cell phone, and put something in his female companion's wine while she was in the restroom. "After a few 'Oh god. What do we do's,'" writes Ulrich, she went to the restroom and informed the woman. "Oh my god," the woman said, adding that "he's one of my best friends." As she explained, they worked together and had known each other for a year and a half. The woman returned to her table as Ulrich's pal Marla notified the manager, which led to a server walking over and the woman ordering sparkling water. "Marla noticed him several times chinking his glass to hers to get her to drink [the wine]," per Ulrich. "She played it cool." With the pair about to leave, Santa Monica PD showed up and arrested Michael Hsu, 24, on charges involving rape and drugging to commit rape, the Huffington Post reports. Restaurant video backed Ulrich's accusation, ABC News reports, and other women dining at FIG walked over to share their own horror stories. "It happened to my roommate," said one, while another said that "it happened to my sister." As one woman put it, "Some heroes don't wear capes. Thank you. It happened to me. Thank you."