After they were racially profiled during Michael’s shopping trip, Petaluma family speaks out

Sadie and Eddie Martinez tell their kids to ignore it, to not let it ruin their day.

But it’s hard not to bristle at the overheard whispers in stores, or at the probing stares from strangers when they’re grabbing dinner or walking around town.

In the months since a white mom from Sonoma took to social media to accuse the Martinezes of attempting to kidnap her children last year at a Petaluma Michael’s, the Latino residents have worked diligently to clear their names while grappling with the newfound spotlight.

“People definitely recognize us now,” Sadie, 46, said last week, speaking publicly about the incident for the first time since December. “Once you live through something like this, you think everyone is looking at you and judging you. It’s uncomfortable.”

The long-time Petaluma residents and parents to five say they’ve struggled to come to grips with what is now widely seen as a brazen instance of racial profiling.

The December kidnapping allegation from Katie Sorensen, a white woman they’ve never met with a large social media following, turned the Martinezes’ lives upside down. It also marked a turning point for Sadie, who has been propelled into a leading activist role in recent months, becoming more vocal on social media, participating in more demonstrations and speaking up at community events.

She wants Sorensen held accountable, even starting a #ProsecuteKatie movement on social media, replete with T-shirts bearing the slogan.

As Petaluma Mayor Teresa Barrett’s appointee to the city’s citizen-led advisory committee on policing and race relations, Sadie will soon take another step toward fixing the damage done to her family. Next week, she plans to introduce her version of San Francisco’s Caren Act, which made racially motivated 911 calls a crime.

The false allegations against the Martinezes touch on a familiar, but painful trend involving white people calling the police on people of color. Similar incidents, including a woman who falsely claimed she was threatened by a Black man in Central Park to the so-called “BBQ Becky,” who dialed 911 to report Black people barbecuing at an Oakland park, have drawn national attention.

For the Martinezes, it started with a leisurely morning shopping trip Dec. 7, 2020.

Wanting to elevate her Christmas display to raise spirits during a holiday season darkened by the coronavirus pandemic, Sadie bought a decorative baby Jesus, completing the nativity scene sitting underneath her tree.

But the innocuous trip to a local craft store would prove to be an unexpected turning point for the couple, thrusting them in the middle of a media frenzy at first involving accusations of kidnapping, then allegations of racial profiling and false police reports.

Eddie, 47, tagged along on the Michael’s trip to spend time with Sadie after taking Monday off to celebrate his birthday. They paid for their things then they left, the couple said, and spent the day enjoying each other’s company.

It wasn’t until the following week that the couple realized their morning errand was at the center of a viral story, which one of their kids had mentioned the day before.

In two Instagram posts, Sorensen, a Sonoma resident and social media influencer, recounted a horrifying tale: Her two young kids had been targeted by a couple who wanted to kidnap them at a Petaluma store. The videos racked up thousands of views, quickly circulating among Petaluma residents at a time when social media has become a critical community gathering place amid successive pandemic lockdowns.

Numerous attempts to reach Sorensen in the months since she posted videos accusing the Martinezes have been unsuccessful.

The number of views and followers on Sorensen’s page ticked upward, reaching more than 4.5 million views, and the police department released images of the couple she accused of trying to steal her kids.

One of the Martinezes’ kids showed the images to Sadie and Eddie.

“This looks like you,” they said to their parents.

Eddie laughed it off at first, thinking it was a joke.

“I remember putting my hands up and disregarding it. I was like, ‘yeah, quit playing’,” he said. “I didn’t think anything of it. But it became real when the police notified us. It was us.”

The pair gave their statements to the police and hosted a news conference. Before the close of the year and just a few weeks after Sorensen’s posts, law enforcement officials announced there was no merit to the kidnapping allegations and subsequently dropped the investigation.

Then, the fury died down. National and international headlines about the viral tale and subsequent reports of racial profiling slipped back into the annals of 2020, and charges against Sorensen for filing a false police report failed to materialize.

But the Martinez family couldn’t escape it so easily.

“I feel like I have a target on my back now,” Eddie said in a Tuesday phone interview, as Sadie sat beside him. “At times, I feel like people look at me and wonder. To be quite honest, that’s why I don’t like to be in the limelight, I don’t like the attention this has brought.”

Pausing for a second, Eddie let out a self-effacing chuckle before adding: “That’s why my wife is the one that’s usually doing all the talking about this!”

A 13-year veteran of UPS, Eddie is well-known along his rural Petaluma delivery route. He stays off social media, he says, and concerns himself primarily with being a good dad and a cheerful employee.

Sadie, a part-time bookkeeper who is heavily involved in her kids’ schools, has also struggled with the attention. She didn’t want to leave the house in the weeks following the whirlwind of attention. But she says she has felt compelled to use her new platform to support other people of color in town and raise awareness about racial profiling and racist behaviors.

“I just feel like I’m a mom with a voice, and I’ve been given the power to use that,” Sadie said. “I look at my kids, my grandkids, and I want to make sure that they’re not dealing with this kind of thing.”

(Contact Kathryn Palmer at kathryn.palmer@arguscourier.com, on Twitter @KathrynPlmr.)