Do you remember this video from this past summer of a woman shouting racial slurs at a couple at Chicago’s Margarita Festival?
Well, the woman who shouted the N-word at the couple — Jessica Sanders — has been charged with a hate crime.
via DNAInfo:
Jessica Sanders, 26, of southwest suburban Alsip, was arrested on a warrant last week and charged with a hate crime and battery.
On Friday, a Cook County judge set her bail at $50,000.
According to prosecutors, Sanders accosted a suburban couple, repeatedly calling them “n——,” after a July 30 argument over a bean bag game at Margarita Fest, an event hosted at the South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. Shore Drive.
The couple — Ernest Crim and his wife, who are African-American suburban high school teachers — hoped to play a round of bags but could only find one bean bag, Assistant State’s Attorney Erin Antonietti said during a bond hearing.
At one point, Sanders, who was playing nearby, threw a bean bag and never collected it, prosecutors said. So Crim’s wife went to retrieve it.
That’s when Sanders, who is white, began calling the woman a “n—–” repeatedly. Crim took out his phone to record Sanders, but she knocked it to the ground, Antonietti said.
Crim was still able to record Sanders telling him he was “acting like a n—–.”
That video went viral this summer.
In an interview with DNAinfo, Crim said that he was shocked by the racist tirade, and his wife was so stressed that she broke down crying.
“What [Sanders] did is just a symptom of something that society, this country, is producing. She’s just outward with it. Before this even happened, this has been a rough summer being a black person,” Crim said.
Though a Margarita Fest security officer eventually intervened, Sanders was not arrested at the scene, prosecutors said. She was picked up on a warrant Wednesday afternoon.
According to prosecutors, Sanders is on supervision for a disorderly conduct conviction in which she used racial slurs with a police officer.
According to her public defender, Sanders works as a waitress. She appeared in court Friday wearing a bright blue Cubs jacket.
Let’s hope she gets convicted.
