Police in New York announced the arrest of a woman they say assaulted four Asian women with pepper spray last weekend, NBC4 reported.
Madeline Barker of Florida faces charges of assault and harassment in the attack in Manhattan. According to ABC7, she also faces hate crime charges.
“She turned around and she was like, ‘you guys are trying to harass me,'” one victim who asked that her name not be used said to ABC7.
“Saying like, go back to where you came from, you don’t belong here,” another victim said. “She pointed to an Asian bystander who was a man, we didn’t know who he was, pointed at him and said take your (expletive) back to your country.”
All four women refused medical treatment.
As of late May, prosecutors succeeded in getting just seven hate crime convictions out of 223 reported attacks in New York.
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