Florida woman charged with hate crimes after pepper-spraying Asian women in NYC (Video)
(Madeline Barker, Image credit: NYPD)
Over the weekend, police in New York City announced the arrest of 47-year-old Madeline Barker, who witnesses say pepper-sprayed four Asian women in Manhattan. The pepper-spraying also included a verbal altercation with Barker hurling racial insults at her victims.
Madeline Barker, 47, of Merritt Island, Florida, allegedly got into a “verbal altercation” and made anti-Asian statements before using pepper spray on four women in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood around 6 p.m. on June 11, the NYPD said.
Police say that Barker’s victims refused medical treatment. She was taken into custody after one of the eyewitnesses on the scene recognized her as the alleged assailant and called the cops. Barker had her first court appearance in NYC on Saturday and, “was formally charged with attempted assault as a hate crime, assault as a hate crime, and harassment as a hate crime,” according to Fox News.
Barker is alleged to have pepper-sprayed the four Asian women at the intersection of 14th Street and Ninth Avenue in Chelsea and is also accused of yelling at the women to, “Go back where you came from! Go back to your country!“
Police say witnesses saw Barker on June 11 pepper spray four women during a verbal altercation and made anti-Asian remarks at the intersection of 14th Street and Ninth Avenue in Chelsea.
At the conclusion of her initial hearing on Saturday, the judge overseeing the case ordered her to be held on $20,000 bail. As of Sunday, June 19, that bail had still not been posted and Barker had remained incarcerated according to NBC News. Barker is scheduled to be back in court on Thursday.
An analysis of hate crime data published this year by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism found that anti-Asian hate crimes increased by 339% last year compared with the year before, with New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities surpassing their record numbers in 2020.
The increase was part of an overall 11% rise in suspected hate crimes reported to police across a dozen of the largest cities in the U.S., with the report finding that Black Americans remained the most targeted group in most cities. ~ NBC
You can see Barker pepper-spraying her victims in the video below.
Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today / Follow Richard on Facebook and Twitter
