A woman was arrested after verbally and physically assaulting a group of Indian-American women standing in a parking lot in Plano, Texas on Wednesday evening.
The unprovoked attack is being investigated as a potential hate crime.
Several video clips of the violent encounter showed the attacker shouting vitriolic statements like:
"You Indians are f'king everywhere."
The woman continued her racist tirade, saying:
"If life was so great in India, why the f'k are y'all here?"
“Go back to India. You curry-a**ed people are ruining this country.”
You can see a clip filmed by one of the four women here:
WARNING: NSFW language
According to CBS DFW, the women were finishing up their dinner in Plano and saying goodbye to each other in their native language.
That was when they heard yelling coming from a woman who approached them and told them to go back to their country.
Police identified the attacker as Esmeralda Upton.
Things escalated when Upton hit one of the women recording her.
At one point, while one of the women called 911, Upton told them she was Mexican-American and then proceeded to hit another person in the group who was also filming her.
Upton yelled:
"I was born here. I paid my f'king way here."
In response, the women asked:
"What makes you think that we are not American."
To which Upton responded:
"Because of the way you speak, because I'm a Mexican American and I speak English."
Upton suddenly attempted to apologize for her behavior but then just as quickly attacked their appearance when the women kept recording.
She demanded the ladies "turn the f'ng cameras off" and threatened to kill them.
"Turn that goddamn phone off, or I swear to god I'll f'king shoot your a**."
You can watch the news report from CBS DFW, here.
Fortunately the police arrived within minutes and detained Upton after she refused to take a breathalyzer test.
On Thursday, the Plano Police Department arrested Upton on charges of bodily assault and making terroristic threats.
According to police spokesperson Andrae Smith, Upton was released on a $10,000 bond.
"Our entire sense of safety was shattered in this incident," said one of the women.
Rani Banerjee, who experienced the attack with her friends, posted a video she filmed on Facebook.
She recounted the racially-motivated encounter in the caption which read:
"Dinner with friends ended with a frightening experience."
"As we left Sixty Vines, Plano and headed towards our cars, an angry, drunk woman came at us with hateful racial slurs and even physically attacked us."
"We called 911 and thankfully the cops arrived in minutes."
Banerjee said after having lived in the Dallas Fort Worth area for 29 years, she never felt so "humiliated, threatened, and scared for my life."
She continued:
"Can’t believe this is what America has become."
@thekalenallen/Threads
U.S. Mint
