BackWatch: Racist abuse on 4 Indian-American women in Texas, accused arrested
Plano police said in a statement Esmeralda Upton, 58, of Plano, was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault and terroristic threat charges. She remained in city jail Thursday with bond set at $10,000.
PremiumThe Plano Police Detectives in Texas has arrested a Mexican-American woman whose video went viral on social media of her racially abusing a group of four Indian-American women.
Plano police said in a statement Esmeralda Upton, 58, of Plano, was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault and terroristic threat charges. She remained in city jail Thursday with bond set at $10,000.
In a post on Twitter, Plano Police (Texas) wrote, “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."
The video which went viral on social media was shot in a parking lot where a woman is seen racially abusing the Indian-American women asking them to ‘go back to India.’
The person who posted this video wrote, "this incident occurred in Dallas, Texas after my mom and her three friends went to dinner".
"This is so scary. She actually had a gun and wanted to shoot because these Indian-American women had accents while speaking English. Disgusting. This awful woman needs to be prosecuted for a hate crime," Reema Rasool said while sharing the video on Twitter.
The incident happened shortly after 8 pm on Wednesday outside a Plano restaurant. A video showed Upton unleashing a profanity-laced rant on them, challenging their presence in the United States, threatening to shoot them and physically assaulting the woman shooting the video.
The statement by the police said that the incident also was being investigated as a hate crime. Jail officials had no attorney listed for Upton.
"I hate you Indian. All these Indians come to America because they want a better life," Esmeralda Upton is seen saying in the video.
The video shows her telling the group of women to "Go back to India. You... people are ruining this country," the CBS News reported.
The mom is seen contesting the arguments made by the Mexican-American woman and requesting her not to make racial slurs. At one point in time, the Mexican-American woman, who says she was born in the United States, is seen assaulting the mom and her other friends as well.
"Everywhere I ... go, you Indians are ... everywhere," she is seen screaming in the video. "If life was so great in India, why are you here," she shouted while inserting the f-word and suddenly started assaulting the four Indian women.
Groups in North Texas with ties to the South Asian American community condemned the attack and said they were relieved that a suspect had been arrested. Urmeet Juneja, president of the India Association of North Texas, said he thinks North Texas has largely been a welcoming and safe place for people who are of South Asian descent, The Dallas Morning News reported.
"We are happy that law enforcement has taken swift action and arrested this person. Still, we also think that they should conduct a fair investigation and get to the bottom of the matter and take this hate crime investigation to its conclusion," Juneja said.
“The events in Plano remind me of stories my parents and their friends told me over and over in the wake of 9/11 — of fellow Americans seeing them as others and enemies," said Saatvik Ahluwalia, a spokesman for Asian Texans for Justice was quoted as saying by the report.
Chanda Parbhoo, executive director of South Asian American Voter Engagement of Texas, said in a statement: "While we are relieved our community members are safe, listening to their cries for help from the verbal, physical, and racist abuse this woman was unleashing in that dark parking lot is infuriating."
(With inputs from agencies)
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