'Kroger Andy' gets $17K vacation fund after Internet slams activist who doxed him for not enforcing mask rule
On Friday, August 7, Danielle Muscato, a well known civil rights activist and podcaster took to Twitter to raise an incident that happened with her at a Kroger outlet. She claimed that she was threatened and assaulted by another customer when she asked her to wear a mask. She further shared store manager Andy's picture on the Internet and slammed him for not doing his duties well. As the tweet went viral, Muscato was badly slammed by netizens for doxing Andy. In fact, people raided a with GoFundMe cam[aign to try and raise funds for Andy to go on a vacation.
I was just threatened w/assault at @kroger in Louisville because I asked another customer to wear a mask, and she refused.
— Danielle Muscato (@DanielleMuscato) August 8, 2020
I reported it to a manager, who found her and talked to her, but refused to do anything more.
His name is Andy, and he does not want Twitter to know that. pic.twitter.com/pATepOuSeJ
Soon, after the incident, Tori Perroti, a Target store worker from Swansea, Massachusetts, who faced a similar incident back in January, knew exactly what to do. She created a fundraiser for Andy on GoFundMe and said, "Andy is a manager at Kroger. Like myself, he has been publicly shamed at his work. The GoFundMe that I received after my ordeal changed my life and afforded me an epic (and needed) vaca. Let's do the same for Andy!" And soon, people started donating money and pouring in love for Andy, Within a few hours, over 500 people came forward to help Andy and an amount of $17,355 has been raised as of writing, while the goal amount was $5,000. One donor said, "Screw this cancel culture. Thank you, Target Tori, you rock for doing this! Andy, enjoy your vacation and thank you for working in a public-facing job, you didn't deserve to get harassed," while another one said, "Sorry you had to go through this. Hope this helps ease the sting a little. These mask shaming bullies need to stop. Not cool."
Back in August 7, the controversy began when Muscato tweeted two pictures of Andy and said, “I reported it to a manager, who found her and talked to her but refused to do anything more. His name is Andy, and he does not want Twitter to know that." She also said, “I didn't get a pic of the woman who threatened me. But it's all on camera, @Kroger has footage. I asked the manager about that footage, too, and he blew me off. Kroger, this is unacceptable,”. In her long twitter thread, she stated that the guard - at Kroger did not intervene and that neither the security person nor the manager, Andy, did anything to check people who weren’t wearing masks. “The right thing to do would be to tell them they cannot check out and must leave for threatening another customer, and aren't allowed back. Even if they weren't willing to go that far, they should have said we won't ring you up without a mask. It's the law and its store policy,” she said. Soon after this, “Leave Andy alone” started trending on twitter and people asked her to STOP bullying poor Andy. Read this story here.
According to Mediaite, the woman who started the fund for Andy, Perrotti, was the target of a similar attempt to shame her online. David Leavitt, whose Twitter bio identifies him as an “Award-Winning Multimedia Journalist,” saw an $89.99 Oral B Pro 5000 electric toothbrush next to a display sign that said $0.01 and demanded that he be allowed to purchase the toothbrush for a penny. Perrotti refused, Leavitt tweeted her photo and claimed she was violating Massachusetts law and he had called the police. After the tweet went viral, the Internet rose up in fury but against Leavitt, not Perrotti, finding his story ridiculous and showed sympathy for her. Soon #TargetTori started trending on Twitter and a GoFundMe campaign was raised for her, sending her to a vacation. In the end, Perrotti received over $34,000, had a lovely time in Hawaii.