IP: People vs. Karen, Part 2

Antonia Cereijido  00:00

[music in] This is Imperfect Paradise: People Versus Karen, Part 2, the story of a white woman who falsely accused a Latino couple of a crime and their quest to hold her accountable. I'm your host, Antonia Cereijido. On the last episode, Katie Sorensen's attempted kidnapping accusation goes viral, and up-ends the lives of Sadie and Eddie Martinez.

Eddie Martinez  00:29

Every 30 seconds or so I'm, I'm wanting to yell and, and scream and be like, you know, what the F are you talking about, lady?

Sadie Martinez  00:37

At that point, they asked if we wanted them to investigate her.

Emily Guerin  00:41

They asked you that?

Sadie Martinez  00:42

Oh, they did. And we said yes.

Antonia Cereijido  00:45

In this episode, a major plot twist, and a deep dive into some of the darker corners of the internet that may have influenced Katie Sorensen.

Dad Challenge Podcast  00:54

[YouTube audio clip] We have to look at this through the eye of a family influencer who needs content.

Stephanie McNeal  00:59

I think that moms were going to Michael's or Target, and they were legitimately afraid that their children were gonna be kidnapped at any moment.

Antonia Cereijido  01:10

Here's LAist correspondent, Emily Guerin. [music out]

Emily Guerin  01:19

On December 17th, 2020, the Petaluma Police Department closed one investigation and opened another. They were no longer trying to figure out whether Sadie and Eddie Martinez had tried to kidnap two blond-haired, blue-eyed children from the Michael's craft store. Now the question was: Did the mother of those children lie to the police about what had happened? To Sadie Martinez, it seemed like a good moment to clear their names. So on December 18th, she held a press conference in the Michael's parking lot.

Press Conference Announcer  01:49

[audio clip] All right. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today.

Emily Guerin  01:53

There were about 40 people there. Little girls on scooters, moms in trucker hats. A guy in a reflective vest walked around with a Black Lives Matter flag. Sadie's friend Kinyatta Reynolds started things off.

Kinyatta Reynolds  01:55

[audio clip] We're here not because of a joyous occasion, but because of another incident in Petaluma, where another person was racially profiled, and there was... [duck under]

Emily Guerin  02:15

A few days earlier, the police station had been flooded with calls from Petaluma parents worried about an attempted kidnapping. Now the script had flipped. Local moms were raging against Katie Sorensen, the woman who had made the accusation.

Press Conference Speaker 1  02:30

[audio clip] And I mean this from the heart, like 100% from the bottom of my heart, you are the worst type of human being.

Press Conference Speaker 2  02:36

[audio clip] Falsifying a story to jeopardize a BIPOC family is not okay. We are here to stand united for Sadie and Eddie, members of our community, our family.

Emily Guerin  02:53

It was a remarkable reversal, especially for Petaluma, a mostly white town traumatized by child abduction. This whole time, Sadie just stood off to the side. She was wearing jeans, a black mask and a Black Lives Matter hoodie. Her long, wavy hair fell over her shoulders. At the very end, she stepped up to the microphone. She later told me she was nervous and had no idea what to say. But she wanted to speak to Katie directly, Katie and all the other women like her, to make her understand what she'd done and the impact it had had on them.

Sadie Martinez  03:25

[audio clip] This is kind of hard for me. I'm a pretty laid back individual. I'm a mom of five in Petaluma. My husband's a local UPS man. We're just an everyday family. So to get up and go shopping one day, and then be accused of trying to abduct, abduct somebody's children is heartbreaking.

Emily Guerin  03:49

A woman pushes Sadie closer to the microphone, [audience applauds] and another woman offers her a megaphone but Sadie waves it off. She doesn't need it.

Sadie Martinez  03:56

[audio clip] The Katies of the world, it stops here. It's not going on anymore. [applause] I think Katie thought that she could just pick on somebody or make up a story about people because she didn't like what they look like. Am I shocked? No. But will we stand for it? Hell no. So today, I stand in front of everybody in a fight to prosecute Katie. That's why I'm here. [applause]

Emily Guerin  04:30

She stands there for a minute, chin up, unsmiling as people clap and cheer and reporters begin to holler out questions. She looks confident and determined. Later Sadie told me that Katie's accusation had really affected them. Having the police send out their photo to their entire community upended their lives.

Sadie Martinez  04:49

We're forever labeled child abductors and in social media, that's, that never ends. So that forever is just attached to us now, and it's, it's a lot.

Emily Guerin  05:01

The impact on Sadie and Eddie shows up in big ways and in small ways. It affects how Sadie dresses now.

Sadie Martinez  05:08

Like before I would show up at any event and not care, no makeup on, hair pulled back in a ponytail with my hoodie on, just being a mom. And now I think twice and I say, Okay, I have to get dressed and look presentable. I have to put my makeup on. So, it affects you mentally.

Emily Guerin  05:27

And Eddie feels like he can't be his full self in public anymore.

Eddie Martinez  05:31

Like before, I was just talk- straight from the heart, whatever I'm doing. Now I find myself, especially with people that I don't know, seeing what I'm gonna say before I say something because I don't want to misconstrue anything or have anything come out the wrong way, that people might take it the wrong way.

Emily Guerin  05:50

[music in] After this press conference, Sadie Martinez had one goal- for Katie Sorensen to face criminal charges. And that's what she began to advocate for loudly while she waited for the results of the Petaluma Police Department's investigation. Meanwhile, this incident was going viral in a whole new way. [music out]

Melissa  06:15

[TikTok audio clip] She literally says in the video like, these people do not look like kind people.

Ruined Leon  06:21

[YouTube audio clip] The police are investigating her for filing a false report because of course, the bitch was lying.

Emily Guerin  06:28

As Katie Sorensen's video made its way around the internet, different stories were starting to be told about what exactly had happened. Many people focused on Katie's description of Sadie and Eddie in the video she posted to Instagram.

Katie Sorensen  06:42

[Instagram audio clip] I definitely felt the heebie jeebies. I didn't feel good, but I thought I was judging a book by its cover. Um, they were not like, kind. That sounds bad, but they weren't, um, they weren't clean cut individuals. Um, and so I attributed my discomfort to just again judging a book by its cover.

Emily Guerin  07:05

Katie herself acknowledges that something about Eddie and Sadie's appearance made her uncomfortable. And although she didn't mention their race explicitly in her video, many people, including Sadie and Eddie, concluded the reason she felt scared was because they're Latino.

Eddie Martinez  07:19

You know, she might have just thought we were just some immigrant couple that was just here, uh, with no immigration papers, with no nothing, looking like bums, maybe stealing something, or doing something and just misjudging us off our looks, off of what we were wearing.

Emily Guerin  07:39

In their mind, Katie was a Karen, a white woman who called the police on two people of color because she felt scared.

Jessie Daniels  07:47

A Karen is a white woman who uses her entitlement to call state power down on Black people and other people of color. And so it's that sort of thinking of 911 as a kind of concierge service that is designed for our um, comfort.

Emily Guerin  08:06

Jessie Daniels is a professor at Hunter College, and she's written a book called, Nice White Ladies.

Jessie Daniels  08:12

Some of these instances of white women behaving badly, really are about, I'm uncomfortable. What do I do about that? Let me involve the state to take care and manage my discomfort.

Emily Guerin  08:24

There's a long history of white people calling the police on innocent people of color, often with brutal consequences. Usually, Jessie Daniels told me, they get away with it.

Jessie Daniels  08:35

It's incredibly rare for white women to be held accountable in these kinds of situations.

Emily Guerin  08:41

But this was late 2020, six months after George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis Police. There was a nationwide reckoning on racial justice. Suddenly, white women like Katie were getting called Karens, and getting called out everywhere.

Audio Clip Montage  08:55

[music in] "The woman in the video is seen calling the NYPD to say an African American man is threatening her."

Audio Clip Montage  09:02

"Barbecue Becky's 911 calls have finally been released nearly four months after she made headlines for calling the police on two Black men."

Audio Clip Montage  09:10

"He was using chalk to write Black Lives Matter when a couple walking by said that he was doing something illegal."

Emily Guerin  09:16

I noticed that people online were making a big deal of the fact that Katie had been a mom influencer. [music out] She ran this small business/blog called Motherhood Essentials, where she gave advice on "clean living" and how to "mother more mindfully." She also did multi-level marketing, selling essential oils, elderberry drops and CBD infused cosmetics. Before she posted the video, Katie had about 3000 followers. The day after, she had more than 80,000 according to BuzzFeed News. [music in] Many people decided that Katie must have wanted to boost her social media following so she made an emotional video positioning herself as a victim, a tried and true method for raising your profile online.

Dad Challenge Podcast  10:02

[YouTube audio clip] We have to look at this through the eye of a family influencer who needs content.

Melissa  10:06

[audio clip] How far are influencers going to go to make a dollar? It is getting ridiculous.

Emily Guerin  10:14

This was Sadie's theory too.

Sadie Martinez  10:16

Her being an influencer, I'm sure is what created all of this. I'm sure she wanted the following so she could make more money.

Emily Guerin  10:24

Sadie thinks that Katie cast a Latino couple as the villains in her story, because she thought she'd get away with it.

Sadie Martinez  10:29

It was pretty evident that she racially profiled us and made up a story to gain followers. [music out]

Emily Guerin  10:38

Maybe, Sadie told me, Katie thought the Martinezes were undocumented, or they wouldn't have the resources to fight back. Or maybe she was just really naive.

Sadie Martinez  10:46

I don't think she really understood the, the um-

Emily Guerin  10:51

Like who she was messing with.

Sadie Martinez  10:52

Yeah, I don't really think she realized what she was doing. If you would have picked a different couple, you might have gotten away with this. But unfortunately, you picked us and I'm not letting it go.

Emily Guerin  11:03

[music in] But not everyone sees Katie as a Karen, or as an influencer gone wrong. In fact, I talked to a number of people who watched the video Katie made and saw something completely different. That's after a break. You're listening to Imperfect Paradise. [music out]

Emily Guerin  11:32

This is Imperfect Paradise. I'm Emily Guerin. Jessica met Katie Sorensen through a local mother's group in Sonoma, California, where Katie used to live and where Jessica still lives. Jessica didn't want to use her last name for fear of being harassed or retaliated against for speaking out in support of Katie.

Jessica  11:50

I saw some people trying to come to her defense online. And they were basically attacked by the mob. I want to be candid with you. Like I'm super nervous to speak with you today about this. Um, and I'm, I'm doing so just because I do think that people need to hear that there's more to this than, than what we're really seeing.

Emily Guerin  12:13

Jessica told me that she'd always known Katie to be a kind and caring person. She even wrote a letter on her behalf to help with her legal case. She said Katie organized a donation drive for people displaced by the wildfires that devastated Sonoma County in 2017.

Jessica  12:28

And that's the Katie that I know. She's really driven to help people, um, regardless of who they are, their background or their race.

Emily Guerin  12:37

The Katie that Jessica knew was a stay at home mom with three kids who belonged to the Church of Latter Day Saints in Sonoma. Jessica found Katie to be a pretty private person, at least in real life, and she doesn't buy the "Katie did it for the clicks" theory. She thinks Katie must have legitimately felt scared while shopping at Michael's and made her Instagram video because she really wanted to help other people learn from her experience.

Jessica  13:01

You know, to be honest with you, I don't think she expected it to blow up the way that I did.

Emily Guerin  13:05

Jessica told me that after Katie posted her initial video, she uploaded a second Instagram video in which she seemed shocked by how it was going viral. I wasn't able to see this video, as Katie's account is now private. But I do know from court documents that when Katie spoke with a Petaluma detective, the day after posting her video, she talked about how overwhelmed she was. She asked for help handling this, quote, "social media thing." I asked Jessica whether she thought what Katie had done was racial profiling.

Jessica  13:34

I didn't read into it that, that way at all. Um, I just saw it as you know, she could potentially have some unconscious biases. We all do. I just think she saw some people who, who scared her. Something about, about the way they behaved, something about what they were saying, what she thought they were saying, you know, scared her.

Emily Guerin  13:55

So I asked her, Why do you think Katie felt scared?

Jessica  13:58

So we were in a lot of the same social media groups, parenting groups. And I was at the time, seeing a lot of posts about like attempted kidnapping and sex trafficking and you know, stranger danger, etc. I think she bought in too much into [music in] the fear mongering and the stranger danger.

Emily Guerin  14:23

Late 2020 was a very weird time to be on the internet. Trump had just lost the election but hadn't conceded yet. It was the deadliest period of the pandemic to date, and we were all social distancing. Vaccines were about to roll out but nobody had them yet. Everybody was online all the time, and conspiracy theories were rampant. It was in this environment that Katie Sorensen and Sadie and Eddie Martinez crossed paths, and what happened and how people talked about what happened, became kind of a microcosm of everything that was going on online. [music out]

Emily Guerin  15:02

The Petaluma Police Department got a search warrant for Katie Sorensen's social media. According to court documents, they found her to be quote, "in significant engagement with QAnon conspiracy theories, which tend to center around kidnappers and pedophiles." I later saw one of Katie's posts. In one, she's holding a hand-drawn sign that reads, quote, "Let's be the generation that ends child trafficking." The photo caption is "slavery still exists," and it ends with the hashtag #savethechildren. I want to take a minute here to explain the QAnon child sex trafficking connection. And in particular, that hashtag on Katie's photo, Save the Children. So Save the Children is the name of 100 year old nonprofit organization that advocates on behalf of children around the world. But in the summer of 2020, the hashtag #Save the Children was co-opted by people who follow the conspiracy theory QAnon. It has nothing to do with the organization. QAnon is an online movement that emerged during the Trump presidency, and it's based on centuries of antisemitic conspiracies. Its followers believe that a secretive group of pedophilic Satan worshipping elites control our government and media. And exposing child sex trafficking is a big part of QAnon. So late in the summer of 2020, QAnon followers began using the hashtag #Save the Children to spread their message on social media. [music in] It showed up in the form of influencers who were making videos about the supposed epidemic of child kidnapping. And there were people on Twitter sharing memes and worried moms posting in private Facebook groups. Stephanie McNeal is now a senior editor for Glamour Magazine, but in late 2020, she was an internet culture reporter at the late Buzzfeed News.

Stephanie McNeal  16:51

There was a lot of misinformation on social media at the time that had led a lot of women to start to believe that child sex trafficking was a way bigger issue than statistically we know it is, and especially stranger kidnapping of children.

Emily Guerin  17:07

Stephanie first saw Katie's Instagram video when it came out back in December 2020. She grew up in Southern California, and some of her friends from back home, were sharing it. And she was like, Oh, I think this is part of that conspiracy.

Stephanie McNeal  17:21

I was on Instagram and all of a sudden, every single story from all of these people that I knew from growing up were sharing, Oh my God, child trafficking is this huge issue. This woman's children literally almost got snatched from her cart at Michael's like, Mamas! Be on alert! like, literally acting like it was Armageddon. And then the next day, when I was at work, it really had just exploded. It was all over every single influencer's page and it became apparent that it was something that we needed to look into because it was spreading so quickly. And the facts seemed pretty murky. [music out]

Emily Guerin  18:04

Stephanie did not immediately think of Katie as an influencer fabricating a story to go viral. Nor did she think of Katie as a Karen, although she can see it now. Instead, she saw her as a woman who may have been primed to see attempted kidnappers everywhere.

Stephanie McNeal  18:19

I think people were brainwashed honestly, like I think that moms were going to Michael's or Target and they were legitimately afraid that their children were gonna be kidnapped at any moment.

Emily Guerin  18:31

Of course, being a Karen and a Save the Children follower are not mutually exclusive, because there are real white supremacist overtones to QAnon and to hashtag #Save the Children in particular.

Cody Buntain  18:43

Much of the imagery and messaging around Save the Children is clearly directed at white audiences.

Emily Guerin  18:51

This is Cody Buntain, a professor at University of Maryland who studies online disinformation. He told me it's particularly triggering to white women. A typical hashtag #Save the Children post features a dark-skinned hand on the shoulder or over the mouth of a white child.

Cody Buntain  19:07

So it sets up a very specific kind of image that young white children, especially young white girls, are at risk of being assaulted or trafficked by some other, racial other.

Emily Guerin  19:22

This imagery plays on anxieties that are deeply rooted in American history- white women being victimized by Black men. This anxiety has led to some truly horrendous things from the murder of Emmett Till to the conviction of the Central Park 5. But the reality is that white children are not disproportionately the victims of human trafficking in America. Black and Native American children are. That's according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Yet almost none of the hashtag #Save the Children posts feature children of color. I wanted to play Cody a bit of Katie Sorensen's Instagram video to see what he thought.

Katie Sorensen  19:59

[audio clip] They weren't um, they weren't clean cut individuals. And they're saying blonde hair, blue eyes. Um, maybe one years old, trying to guess ages.

Emily Guerin  20:11

What do you think about that?

Cody Buntain  20:13

Well I think the first bits of that messaging are exactly in line with what we see and the kinds of imagery that's presented with, with the QAnon conspiracy, right? And it's again, just more evidence that the reality is, is being warped here.

Emily Guerin  20:31

[music in] I don't know whether Katie believed any of the Save the Children conspiracies. I also don't know if she was a QAnon follower. But I do know from court documents that she attended a rally about sex trafficking. And when she posted her video, it was to make parents aware of possible threats to their children.

Katie Sorensen  20:47

[audio clip] My purpose in sharing this is to simply raise awareness. My hope is that this inspires a parent who is in a situation where they do need to take their children out into public right now, to be aware of what's going on. Um, I don't want to impose a fear mentality. We have enough fear of living in this world right now. I don't want to add to that, but I just want to encourage you to be aware. [music out]

Emily Guerin  21:20

A few months after Katie posted her video, she and her family moved out of state. Her mom later told me that they had been getting death threats and no longer felt safe in Sonoma. The Sorensen's bought a house on the outskirts of Bozeman, Montana. I wrote her a letter there, but she didn't answer and none of my other attempts to contact her worked either- phone, social media, through her family members. The day after I emailed the school where she now works, her photo and biography had been removed from the teachers' page. [music in] Katie hasn't talked to the media since December 2020. But in early March 2023, Katie's mom, Jill Turgeon-Turrill, began to speak out. That's coming up on Imperfect Paradise. Stay with us. [music out]

Emily Guerin  22:20

[music in] You're listening to Imperfect Paradise from LAist Studios. I'm Emily Guerin. While Katie Sorensen has kept silent, her mom Jill Turgeon-Turrill turned to social media this past spring to defend Katie. Jill wrote a long Facebook post and offered her theory of why Katie filed her police report and posted her video. Jill believes Katie had a legitimate reason to be concerned that day at Michael's, and that as a responsible citizen, she reported her concerns to the police. Jill believes that Katie never said anything in her police report that would lead anyone to think her concerns were racially motivated. But she thinks Katie has been accused of racism and targeted by the media because of quote, "the color of her skin and her political affiliation." [music out] Jill ended her post with the hashtag #hernameisKatienotKaren. But Sadie Martinez has her own hashtag, #prosecuteKatie. And for the past two years, she's been writing it everywhere, on the sidewalk, on the beach, on receipts at restaurants. She's even had sweatshirts printed and worn them on national TV. She did a banner drop over the 101 freeway.

Sadie Martinez  23:34

The level of what she did to us, the level of hate and racism in 2020 when this happened is unacceptable. She was willing to send us to jail for 25 years for something that never even happened. And I teach my kids- I've raised five kids to go out in the world and live your best life and you belong here just as much as the next person. I cannot just sit down and let this person just walk all over our family and do this. This is not okay.

Emily Guerin  24:05

Sadie has been getting messages from people all over the country. A lot of people of color have had the experience of being accused of something they did not do.

Sadie Martinez  24:13

I've had numerous messages. People asking how I decided to fight back, how I go about my decisions. It's, it's crazy.

Emily Guerin  24:24

This is part of why she's going so hard.

Sadie Martinez  24:27

I have the ability to speak up. I have the ability to stand up here and fight back for people who can't.

Emily Guerin  24:33

And then in April 2021, there was a huge development in the hashtag #prosecuteKatie campaign. The Sonoma County District Attorney charged Katie Sorensen with three counts of false reporting of a crime. False reporting is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail, which means 18 months total for all three counts. Criminal defense lawyers in California told us that being charged for false reporting is rare. It's even rarer for a case to actually make it to trial. But on two separate occasions, the judge in this case denied Katie's lawyer's request to have her case dismissed in exchange for diversity sensitivity and social media ethics training, among other things. The judge, Laura Passaglia, wrote in her ruling that if Katie's case didn't go to trial, people might believe the justice system is not fair. Quote, "The ethics of social media manipulation, the real world consequences of public shaming, and most importantly, the societal impact of false accusations attacking people of color in our community loom large here," she wrote. [music in] In April 2023, jury selection finally began after two years of delays. When I called Sadie to check in a few days beforehand, she told me she'd been feeling anxious but was looking forward to the closure.

Sadie Martinez  25:55

I believe that the truth will come out finally. She made up this story, posted it online, and the moment the world found out she was not telling the truth, she never spoke again. She now has to sit up there and tell the truth and um, and be held accountable. I look forward to that. I look forward to the world hearing that none of this ever happened.

Antonia Cereijido  26:39

LAist correspondent Emily Guerin. Next time on Imperfect Paradise...

Emily Guerin  26:46

So today is day one of the Katie Sorensen trial, and I'm actually walking in right behind Katie and her husband.

Melanie  26:54

Everybody knows about it. We call her Kidnap Katie.

Sadie Martinez  26:58

I know it's about race and that's enough for me. [music out]

Antonia Cereijido  27:14

[music in] This episode of Imperfect Paradise was written and reported by Emily Guerin. I'm the show's host, Antonia Cereijido. Catherine Mailhouse is the Executive Producer of the show, and Shana Naomi Krochmal is our Vice President of Podcasts. Rebecca Katz is our intern and the producer of this series. James Chow provided additional production. Jens Campbell is our Production Coordinator. The editor is Sarah Kate Kramer. Fact checking by Caitlin Antonios. Mixing and theme music by E. Scott Kelly. Imperfect Paradise is a production of LAist Studios. This podcast is powered by listeners like you. Support the show by donating now at LAist.com/join. This podcast is supported by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live. [music out]