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By Brooke Sopelsa
A black transgender woman has been charged with multiple crimes and offenses related to hate crimes as a result of a series of pepper bomb attacks in New York.
Tasha Heard was arrested on Saturday night in connection with at least two separate attacks, although police questioned her about several other similar incidents.
In an alleged incident, Heard is accused of approaching a white couple in their 50s on Friday afternoon while they were buying in the Bronx. She reportedly told the couple that she hated whites before assaulting them.
"They were approached by the accused who kicked the two victims and sprayed them with a substance in their face," an NYPD spokesperson said in an email. "The victims suffered minor injuries."
The other alleged incident for which Heard was charged is of a similar nature and occurred Saturday in the Bronx.
"The defendant approached a 30-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman, asked them if they were white and had posted a scarred sharp object," said the NYPD. "The victim was sprayed in the face with an unknown substance causing redness, burning and discomfort."
The court documents did not mention a lawyer for Heard, mentioned in official documents and police reports by his legal name, Thomas.
Police told NBC New York that Heard had pepper sprayed six more whites in Manhattan – five at a Harlem subway station and one at a subway station near the Upper West Side.
Joshua Smith, one of those alleged victims, said the suspect never said a word when she sprayed him with pepper near the 125th Street subway station in Harlem.
"She carried the mass directly to my eye and sprayed it in my eye," Smith told NBC New York. "She just walked towards me, as literally, walked towards me, walked and walked."
Smith said that being sprayed on the face was "rough".
"It ignites your entire face, your sinuses, your throat seems to close," he explained.
These alleged attacks took place as more and more prejudicial crimes were reported in the United States. In its latest report, the FBI reported an increase of over 17% in hate crime across the country in 2017 – the third consecutive year the number has increased.
According to the latest FBI report, nearly half of people (48.8%) were motivated by anti-Black prejudice, while 17.5% were motivated by anti-white prejudices and 10.9% by prejudices. anti-black.
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