After being caught on camera hurling racist epithets and attacking ladies of South Asian heritage in a suburban Dallas parking lot, a lady is now perhaps facing charges for a hate crime.
Texas’s PLANO — Another alarming instance of anti-Asian violence observed across the U.S. led to the arrest of a woman and the possibility of a hate crime prosecution after she was caught on camera yelling racist epithets and assaulting ladies of South Asian heritage in a suburban Dallas parking lot.
Esmeralda Upton, 58, of Plano, was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault and making a terroristic threat, according to a statement from the Plano police on Thursday. She was imprisoned with a $10,000 bond.
As she and her three companions were leaving a restaurant after dinner, Rani Banerjee told Dallas TV station WFAA that Upton approached them in the parking lot.
“All of a sudden, we heard this woman yelling at us and turning to face her. Her use of ethnic slurs and confrontational demeanor astounded us, Banerjee added.
The attack was denounced by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
According to Faizan Syed, executive director of CAIR-DFW, “the degree of hostility and alleged physical violence against four Indian-American ladies in Plano is simply disgusting.” We urge law enforcement to look into the incident as a possible hate crime because “this kind of hatred has no place in North Texas.”
According to the police report, the event is being looked into as a possible hate crime. For Upton, the jail had no listed attorney.
This is awful! Indian women have been racially abused, assaulted in Texas, told to 'go back to India'. What world is this? https://t.co/SLPPPToYxI
— Richa Pinto (@richapintoi) August 26, 2022
The altercation took place on Wednesday shortly after 8 o’clock. Upton was seen in a widely shared video ranting at them, questioning their citizenship in the country, threatening to shoot them, and physically attacking Banerjee, who was filming the exchange on her phone.
Violence against Asians has drastically increased in recent years. The eight people slain in a shooting at massage parlors in and around Atlanta last year included six women of Asian heritage, which heightened outrage and terror among Asian Americans.
A man was charged with a hate crime and other offenses earlier this month after he was allegedly responsible for shooting three Asian American ladies at a salon in Dallas’ Koreatown. And a West Texas man who attacked an Asian family outside a Midland department shop in 2020 on the grounds that he believed they were Chinese and responsible for the COVID-19 outbreak was earlier this month given a 25-year prison sentence.
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