[Updated] 3rd Black Woman Charged With Hate Crime for Anti-White Assault on MTA Bus

Updated as of 8/19/2022 at 9:15 a.m. ET

A total of three Black teens have been charged with hate crimes after allegedly beating a white woman and making “anti-white” statements, according to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz. The 57-year-old woman was hospitalized as a result of her injuries. As hate crimes spike against Black and brown people, they’ve also been spiking against white people.

On the evening of July 9, Jill LeCroix and three other girls were on a southbound MTA bus in Queens. According to CNN, they got into a verbal dispute and one of the girls shouted, “I hate White people. I hate the way they talk.” LeCroix told New York Post the girls were “looking for trouble.”

“Before they hit me, the girl with the green hair said, ‘You probably like Trump! Don’t you?’ I said, ‘I love him.’ I didn’t see which one hit me first,” LeCroix said. “She had a bag from Bath and Body Works, and she took out a scrub and said she was going to beat me with it. It was tangerine. She said, ‘You’re going to get what you deserve! All white people are going to get what they deserve.’ It was crazy.”

More on the incident from CNN:

The woman was hit in the head with an unknown object, the release said, causing a laceration and bleeding.

The three girls ran away and the woman was taken to a local hospital where she received three staples on her head, the release said.

NYPD released a photo of three Black teenagers wanted in connection with the incident and two of them — a 15 and 16-year-old — have been arrested and charged with hate crimes. Police are still searching for the third girl.

The Queens District Attorney’s Office will ultimately decide what charges the teenagers will face.

Jahnaiya Williams, 19, is charged with assault as a hate crime as well as other charges, per the DA’s office. Williams was arraigned Monday and faces 3 to 15 years in prison if convicted.

“As alleged, the defendant, as well as two other apprehended individuals, carried out an unprovoked assault on a public transit rider simply because of the victim’s race,” said Katz via the press release. “I am committed to holding accountable those who perpetuate bias-motivated attacks on the residents of the most diverse county in the world.”

As often as we disregard the “reverse racism” and “white oppression” cries from white folks, they aren’t exempt from being victims of hate crimes. By the Justice Department’s definition, a hate crime is one motivated by bias against a certain race, gender, sexuality and so on. If these girls were spewing “anti-white” comments out the gate, their actions qualified them for this charge.

The NYPD even has a platform to track hate crimes, though people of color are overwhelming recorded to be on the receiving end. According to the NYPD Hate Crimes Dashboard, there’s been 51 hate crimes against Asians, 35 against Black people and only one against a white person.

This is only accounting for one region. Imagine the numbers elsewhere.