Plano police said in a statement Thursday that Esmeralda Upton, 58, of Plano, was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault and terroristic threat charges. She was jailed with bond set at $10,000.
“Suddenly, we heard this woman yelling at us and started coming toward us. We were shocked by the racial slurs that she used and combative attitude,” Banerjee said.
“The level of vitriol and alleged physical assault against four Indian-American women in Plano is truly appalling,” Faizan Syed, executive director of CAIR-DFW, told the TV station. “This type of hate has no place in North Texas, and we call on law enforcement to investigate this incident as a hate crime.”
The police statement said the incident was being investigated as a hate crime. Jail officials had no attorney listed for Upton.
The confrontation happened shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday. A widely circulated videoshowed Upton unleashing a profanity-laced rant on them, challenging their presence in the United States, threatening to shoot them and physically assaulting Banerjee, who was recording the confrontation on her phone.