A White woman in a hate crime involving a Black woman who was punched in the face while hurling racial slurs has been arrested and charged with assault, police say.
On Friday, Linette Difrancesco, 54, was accused of striking a 50-year-old woman in a gratuitous attack while making racist remarks at the intersection of Kings Highway and Avenue O in Brooklyn shortly after 6pm, according to amNY.
“Black piece of sh*t,” the suspect reportedly said. “That’s what you are.”
The victim did not require medical care as a result of the attack. Difrancesco has been charged with assault as a hate crime.
In another incident, the suspect allegedly threw a hard object at another woman as she stood outside Coney Island Hospital, according to a complaint filed. In that case, the victim was trying to find an entrance to the hospital when she was attacked, officials say. Difrancesco was charged with assault, attempted assault, menacing, weapon possession and harassment.
A judge ordered that Difrancesco be held for mental examination during an arraignment for both cases.
Last year, the suspect was accused of waving a knife while chasing someone at McDonald Avenue and Avenue U in Gravesend.
She was charged with menacing and harassment — but released during that arraignment.
News of Difrancesco’s attack comes less than one week after a perpetrator slashed a Black woman’s tires, smashed her windshield and left a note with racial slurs on her vehicle has been charged with one felony count and one misdemeanor count of intimidating and interfering.
Last Thursday, William McDonald, 45, pleaded guilty in court after he was accused of harassing Black residents “because of their race and because they were exercising their right to fair housing,” according to a We Are Green Bay report.
According to the United States Attorney’s Office, after McDaniel vandalized the woman’s car, he threatened to slash her throat and demanded she moves out of West Allis, a Wisconsin neighborhood where they both reside. One week later, he gave her an ultimatum to leave the neighborhood or “suffer violence.”
“No one should feel unsafe in their home or be subjected to harmful and derogatory threats because of the color of their skin,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Justice Department will continue to protect the housing rights of all individuals and vigorously prosecute those who use racially-charged threats to drive people from their homes.”
