Woman Allegedly Tosses Pepper at Baby While Hurling Racial Slurs in New York Pizzeria
A woman and her two children were allegedly assaulted and had pepper thrown at them last Friday at a Brooklyn pizzeria when a woman came into the restaurant and began yelling racial slurs at the mother and her kids.
WNBC reported that at around 5:30 p.m. at Not Ray's Pizza in Brooklyn, a 36-year-old mother and her two kids went out to eat when they met a stranger in the restaurant who began yelling racial slurs at them.
"We were assaulted with racial slurs and we were physically assaulted," the mother, who did not wish to reveal her identity, told WNBC.
The woman allegedly began calling the mother and her 4-year-old son the N-word, among other anti-Black slurs, and reportedly told them to "go back to their country."
The NYPD said that the verbal attack became physical when the woman allegedly grabbed a red pepper shaker and threw it at the mother.
On 6/11/21 at 5:21 PM inside a Pizza shop at 694 Fulton St., Bklyn, a 36-year-old female patron, was exiting the location when a female entered, grabbed a shaker of black pepper, shook pepper at the victim and made anti-Black/anti-immigrant statements. Know her? ☎️1-800-577-TIPS. pic.twitter.com/mlaP0G9sql
— NYPD Hate Crimes (@NYPDHateCrimes) June 16, 2021
"My daughter was in my arms. It was aimed to us," the mother told WNBC on Wednesday.
The mother made sure that no red pepper flakes got into her 5-month old daughter's eyes or nose, and the woman allegedly went into a heated and profanity-laden rant before leaving the shop.
NYPD confirmed with Newsweek that the NYPD Hate Crime Task Force is currently investigating the incident.
However, the incident left the mother with a difficult task: explaining to her children what had happened. "I spoke to my children and I let them know that we're humankind. We're going to stand together," she told WNBC. She said that they will continue to eat together and called for New York to "stand up."
Police are still searching for the woman and NBC4 reporter Ida Siegal said on a broadcast Wednesday that pizza shop employees believed the woman to be homeless, as she has asked for money from them previously.
She is potentially facing aggravated harassment charges.
The New York Hate Crime Task Force was created in 2018 and has seen a significant increase in the number of hate crimes in the state of New York in the last several months.
"New York has zero tolerance for bias or discrimination of any kind," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement in 2018 after creating the task force.
NYPD has asked that any tips on the woman's identity or location be sent to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS.
