Man Arrested After Allegedly Yelling ‘White Power’ At Black Woman Following Car Accident
Police in Ohio said a man was arrested after he yelled an ethnic slur and said “white power” at the scene of a car accident on Tuesday, according to a report from The Columbus Dispatch.
The man, who was not identified by name, is 26-years-old and was taken into police custody on Wednesday following the Tuesday confrontation.
According to The Columbus Dispatch report, police said the accident occurred Tuesday in Alliance, Ohio, around 8 a.m. After the man’s car collided with a black female driver’s, he got out of his car and remarked that there “ain’t no damage” before using a racial slur against the woman.
After the collision, the man drove to a parking lot nearby and yelled “white power” at the woman.
The 26-year-old man is from Butler, Pennsylvania, according to the police report, per The Columbus Dispatch, and was arrested Wednesday and charged with ethnic intimidation, a fifth-degree felony, and a misdemeanor charge of aggravated menacing.
Alliance Police had put a call out on its Facebook page Tuesday asking for help in identifying the man. The post generated some 1,600 shares.
The woman involved said that she was worried the man was heading back to his car to obtain a weapon. In a Facebook post that the woman shared following the confrontation, she said that the man tried to retrieve something from his glovebox but was stopped by his girlfriend in the car.
Police said an unnamed co-defendant confirmed to police that the man had been reaching for a gun, per The Columbus Dispatch.
Man arrested after yelling ‘white power,’ ethnic slur at Ohio accident scene, police say https://t.co/Ka52ZbJEo8
— Columbus Dispatch (@DispatchAlerts) August 8, 2019
The confrontation comes at a time when discussions about race relations in the United States are heating up following a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas over the weekend that left 22 dead. The shooter targeted a Walmart store in El Paso, which has a population of 83 percent Hispanic and Latino people, per the U.S. Census Bureau.
The shooter allegedly posted a manifesto prior to the mass killing on forum website 8chan in which he detailed what he called an “invasion” of Hispanic people in Texas. As has been reported, the language used by the shooter in that manifesto has echoed some comments President Trump has made in the past, per The New York Times.
Politicians have sounded off against white supremacy following the El Paso shooting. New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke out earlier in the week, calling the president racist and speaking directly to white supremacists. She directed those who may be radicalized by white nationalist ideology to “come back” to their family and friends, and to leave white supremacy behind, per a previous report from The Inquisitr.
Presidential candidate Joe Biden on Wednesday charged the president with fanning “the flames of white supremacy in this nation,” per a report from The Washington Post.
