Louisiana authorities have jailed two men they say racially harassed a Black woman while she shopped at a Walmart store late last month.
The men, identified by online users as 22-year-old Dylan Reynolds and 24-year-old Michael Walters, were wanted on hate crime charges stemming from the Nov. 29 incident, according to the Monroe News Star. West Monroe Police posted an image of the suspects to its Facebook page on Tuesday and apprehended the suspects by Thursday with the help of online users.
Dylan Reynolds and Michael Walters are facing hate crime charges stemming from a racist attack against a Black woman. (Image courtesy of West Monroe Police Department)
A police report filed in the incident states the woman had just left West Monroe store and was loading her items into her car when the two males approached and began terrorizing her. The entire incident was captured on surveillance video.
“While in the parking lot the victim was yelled at and called a ‘n—-r,’ ” officers wrote in the report. “The female rushed the items in her vehicle and tried to escape the two white males while they were yelling racial slurs at her.”
The woman fled the scene in her vehicle, one of the men chased her on foot with an empty shopping buggy, which he rammed into the back of her van as she slowed to clear a speed bump. The cart caused over $1,000 in damages to her vehicle, police said.
According to surveillance footage, Reynolds and Walters hopped in a dark gray Dodge Ram 2500 pickup truck and sped off before police arrived. The truck in question was also spotted in a photo on Reynold’s Facebook page, the Monroe News Star reported.
Louisiana news outlets report that Reynolds and Walters were booked into Ouachita Correctional Center in Richwood, La., on Thursday and remained in custody as of the next morning. The bond for each suspect is set at $20,000 on the hate crime charge.
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