A video of a woman hurling racial slurs towards a group of Indian-American women in Plano, Texas has gone viral on social media on Wednesday.
The video shot in a parking lot outside the Sixty Vines restaurant in Texas shows the woman, Esmeralda Upton, yelling racist remarks towards the group and even striking one person from the group in the face.
Police officers from the Plano Police Department arrested Esmeralda Upton shortly after the four Indian-American women reported the incident to the authorities.
The five and half minute video posted on the Facebook page of Rani Banerjee, one of the victims of the assault, showed Esmeralda Upton hitting one of the women in the face and swiping at the phones of two women who were filming the incident.
She also reached into her bag threatening to shoot the four women.
ASSAULT ARREST
On Thursday, August 25, 2022, at approximately 3:50 p.m., Plano Police Detectives arrested Esmeralda Upton of Plano on one charge of Assault Bodily Injury and one for Terroristic Threats and is being held on a total bond amount of $10,000. A jail photo is attached. pic.twitter.com/cEj9RwWdt1— Plano Police (Texas) (@PlanoPoliceDept) August 25, 2022
Esmeralda was charged with single charges of Assault Bodily Injury and Terroristic Threats. Upton was held with a $10,000 bond. The incident is being treated as a hate crime. Esmeralda could face additional charges, the press release published by the Plano Police Department said. The investigation into the incident is ongoing.
Another act of violence and #Hinduphobia. As the @ncri_io report on Hinduphobia warned, online hate leads to real life violence. We urge @PlanoPoliceDept to take firm action against such assault and bigotry! https://t.co/SAgadkjuTp
— CoHNA (Coalition of Hindus of North America) (@CoHNAOfficial) August 25, 2022
Rani Banerjee, one of the victims of the racial attack, shared the video on Facebook late on Wednesday and it went viral on the social media platform. It was also shared on Reddit where it went viral as well.
The video begins after the confrontation between Esmeralda and the four women began. The video starts with Upton shouting outside the parking lot and telling the women to ‘go back to India’.
Upton, in her expletive-laden racist rant, said that Indians are everywhere and asked them why they are here. “Everywhere I ****ing go you ****ing Indians are everywhere. If life was so great in India, why the f**k are y’all here?,” Upton can be heard saying. The victims can be heard calling 911 and the police and describing the woman attacking them.
When one of the Indian-American women said a ‘white woman’ was attacking her, Upton said she is a Mexican American. The woman then retorted by saying: “If you are Mexican, why don’t you go back to Mexico.”
Upton replied by saying that ‘she pays her taxes’ and threatens to take out a gun and shoot at the four women. “Turn the goddamn phone off or I swear to god I’ll shoot your a**.” An officer arrived at the scene and was seen speaking to Rani and her friends.
Rani while speaking to local news outlets said she was shocked by the combative attitude of the woman.
Several people on social media condemned the incident. The Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA) also condemned the incident.
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