Two Black teenage girls in New York City were arrested and charged with hate crimes on Tuesday over the vicious attack on a 57-year-old White woman on a bus in Queens earlier this month.
The 15 and 16-year-old girls were arrested Tuesday and are being held in the 102nd precinct, according to the New York Police Department. They each face two counts of assault while carrying out a hate crime and aggravated harassment while carrying out a hate crime.
Their names have not been released in compliance with policy concerning minors. Police are still searching for a third suspect.
NYPD released a video and a photo showing the three Black girls walking down a city street earlier this month, saying investigators were seeking information on the suspects sought in a July 9 hate crime incident.
At about 6:50 p.m., police said the three individuals approached a 57-year-old female passenger on the southbound Q52 MTA bus in the vicinity of Jamaica Avenue and Woodhaven Boulevard and struck her in the head with an unknown object, causing a laceration and bleeding.
During the attack they were making “anti-White statements,” police said.
The individuals fled on foot and the victim was taken to Jamaica Hospital in stable condition. The woman required staples on her head because of her injuries.
The victim, 57-year-old Jill LeCroix, said she has three bi-racial children, is a grandmother of five and currently works as a bartender. LeCroix said the teenage assailant with green hair was shouting that she “hates White people, the way they talk” and accused her of being a fan of former President Trump.
“Before they hit me, the girl with the green hair said, ‘You probably like Trump! Don’t you?’ “I said, ‘I love him, (Trump)” I didn’t see which one hit me first,” LeCroix said.
“The one with the green hair, she was saying she hates White people, the way they talk, hates White skin, the way their skin cracks. Saying she was gangsta,” the woman added, saying she was on the way to visit her mother at the time. “I was the only White person on the bus. By the time we started passing St. John’s Cemetery on Woodhaven, she started in on me, saying, ‘That’s where I’m going to bury you!’”
“She had a bag from Bath and Body Works, and she took out a scrub and said she was going to beat me with it. It was tangerine,” LeCroix recounted. “She said, ‘You’re going to get what you deserve! All White people are going to get what they deserve.’ It was crazy.”
NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force is investigating this incident.
In a tweet about the arrests Tuesday, NYPD Hate Crime Task Force credited a tipster for help tracking down two juveniles regarding this “anti-white assault,” as the third perpetrator remains outstanding.
