A man who spit in the face of a Black woman in Southwest D.C. has been charged and found guilty of a hate crime, according to police.
According to evidence obtained by the Metropolitan Police Department, the woman was walking her service dog and exiting a ramp near her apartment complex when Gueorgui Iskrenov, 33, sped up alongside her, attempting to hit the woman and her dog.
The woman told Iskrenov to be careful, but instead, he began hurling racist and sexist remarks at her. He then proceeded to spit on her face with the saliva landing on her glasses and hair. He then sped off leaving the woman bewildered, scared and confused.
Police found Iskrenov 23 days later and found that he had prior history of racist attacks against Black people. He was found guilty of a bias-related assault. The verdict was made after a three-day trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
“In announcing the verdict, U.S. Attorney [Matthew M.] Graves and Chief [Robert J.] Contee [III] commended the work of those who investigated the case from the Metropolitan Police Department,” reads a statement from the Department of Justice’s website. “They also commended the efforts of Assistant U.S. Attorneys Erica Rudolf and Katie Sessa, who prosecuted the case, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emily Kubo and Travis Wolf who investigated the case.”
A recent FBI report found that approximately 15,000 law enforcement agencies submitted crime-related incidents motivated by “race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity in 2020,” according to the Equal Justice Initiative.
The report continues: “Bias against African Americans overwhelmingly comprised the largest category of race-based hate crime incidents, with a total of 56% of race-based hate crimes being motivated by anti-Black bias,” the report reads, adding that “attacks targeting Black people saw the largest rise, from 1,972 in 2019 to 2,755 in 2020.”
