Stephanie Rapkin hate crime. Shorewood attorney charged in spitting incident involving Eric Lucas BLM teen protester. Faces up to 7 years jail.
A 64-year-old suburban Milwaukee woman has been charged with a hate crime after she was filmed on video spitting on a Black Lives Matter protester last weekend.
Stephanie Rapkin of Shorewood, Wisconsin faces two charges stemming from the incident, according to a criminal complaint released Friday morning – disorderly conduct with a hate crime enhancer, and battery to a law enforcement officer, TMJ4 reports.
Rapkin a local attorney was charged with the hate crime following a ‘spitting incident’ involving teen Black Lives Matter protester Eric Lucas. Upon being detained and later released, Rapkin would only come to be arrested for a second time when she became combative with protesters who turned up outside her home the next day.
Video showed the lawyer seemingly shoving a protester along with kneeing an officer who’d responded to the scene in the groin, according to cops.
The criminal complaint states that Lucas saw crowds gathered around Rapkin as he was marching. They were demanding that she move her car.
Twitter meet Wisconsin attorney, Stephanie Rapkin. She parked her car to block a protest through a white suburban area, then SPIT on a MINOR. Make her famous. pic.twitter.com/p8f4DQguNN
— BLACKLIVESMATTER (@t_ye17) June 8, 2020
‘Again and again, I am viewed not as a child but as a color.’
As Lucas approached Rapkin, he and his friends began chanting, ‘I’m black and I’m proud.’ Once Lucas was was a few feet away, Rapkin spat at the boy. According to the criminal complaint, her spit struck him in his face and mouth area, and on the top of his shirt.
Cellphone video showed no one in the crowd having touched the 64 year old attorney or threatened her prior to her spitting at Lucas — a junior at Shorewood High School.
‘I continue to be mentally and physically shaken to be assaulted by an adult in my community during the pandemic,’ Lucas said following the incident. ‘Again and again, I am viewed not as a child but as a color.’
When police questioned Rapkin about the spitting incident, the lawyer stated that she was a cancer survivor and felt threatened because crowds were surrounding her and they did not have masks on.
If convicted, Rapkin faces up to seven years behind bars and $20,000 in fines.
