Home Scandal and Gossip Missing Palo Alto woman fired harassing MAGA hat wearer found safe

Missing Palo Alto woman fired harassing MAGA hat wearer found safe

Christopher Koulouris: About author bio at bottom of article.
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Rebecca Mankey
Pictured, Rebecca Mankey and Victor- the MAGA hat wearer she harassed.
Rebecca Mankey
Pictured, Rebecca Mankey and Victor- the MAGA hat wearer she harassed.

Rebecca Mankey: A missing Palo Alto, California woman who went missing has been found after causing national debate after harassing MAGA hat wearer.

A music store employee who was fired after berating an elderly man wearing a Make America Great Again (MAGA) hat outside a California Starbucks has been found five days after being reported missing.  

Rebecca Parker Mankey, 46, from Palo Alto, failed to return home to her husband on Friday after a trip to Lake County, with authorities now saying the missing woman has been located the Palo Alto Daily Post reported.

Police have said they do not believe there was any cause for concern and that Mankey, who received national backlash and death threats earlier this month, simply wanted to go ‘off the grid’ for a time. 

She ended up drawing attention to herself after she berated a 74-year-old man in a MAGA hat.  

It wasn’t until Monday morning that Mankey contacted family members, informing them that she was safe, Lt. Corey Paulich of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office told the Mercury News.

Authorities say that it appears Mankey wanted to lay low for a time after the flood of negative attention she’d received in recent weeks.

‘We have nothing that makes us think she’s at-risk,’ Sgt. Aaron Clark of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office said. 

Mankey ended up in the spotlight after she yelled at the Trump supporter calling him ‘racist’ and a ‘Nazi’ before boasting about her attack online earlier this month.

In a Facebook post she admitted shouting at Victor and calling for anyone who saw the man to ‘please confront him.’

The post was spotted by her boss which eventually led to Mankey losing her job.

‘He will never forget me and will think seriously about wearing that hat in my town ever again,’ she wrote on Facebook.

Mankey’s post went viral, sparking national debate about the country’s political divide and the influence of out-of-bounds extremism.

She was forced to resign from her job as the accountant and chief financial officer at a music store in Palo Alto and chose to step down from her position as co-chair and member of the Bayshore Progressive Democrats following the commotion.    

The Trump supporter – who gave his name only as Victor – said those criticizing people for wearing the red hat have ‘Trump derangement syndrome.’

He added: ‘If you can’t tell the difference between a Make America Great hat and a hat that’s a Nazi hat or a Ku Klux Klan hat, I would say you are deranged.’

‘This woman came over and not only started screaming at me, she turned to the Starbucks audience and said, “Hey everybody come here! This guy’s a racist! This guy hates brown people!.”‘ 

Added Victor, ‘I feel bad someone gets fired from their job, but that’s the way it is between her and her job.’

In the post on her now deactivated page, Mankey admitted to the dispute: ‘I yelled at him. Called the entire Starbucks to order and yelled at him more about how it’s not okay to hate brown people…I called him more names and told him to call the police. 

‘He wouldn’t call the police so I called him a wimp, He got his stuff together to leave. I followed him to the register while he complained about me, then chased him out of Starbucks yelling at him to get the f*** out of my town.’

She later wrote in a comment that she was ‘going to publicly shame him in town and try to get him fired and kicked out of every club he is in.’ 

Palo Alto police said neither party filed a report on the incident, but Mankey was fired from her job at Gryphon Strings, a guitar sales and repair shop, after the store owner was made aware of the incident.

‘Gryphon does not believe anyone should be harassed or subject to hate speech no matter their beliefs,’ the store posted in response to its decision to fire Mankey. 

Richard Johnson, the owner of the store where Mankey worked, said she was fired because her actions conflict with his beliefs and values.

‘Music has historically been something that has brought people of diverse socio-political backgrounds together,’ the store said in a statement at the time. 

‘We would like to make it clear that the opinions expressed and actions taken by the employee are not indicative of how we conduct ourselves at the shop and we hope we can continue to serve our customers across the country respectfully and universally as we have done for nearly 50 years.’ 

Palo Alto police said that Victor did not contact them about what happened and as a result they did not have proof that any crime took place, however Mankey is said to have contacted police over alleged threats due to her comments on social media.

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