A white Georgia woman found herself in handcuffs after berating and allegedly attacking a group of Black teenagers she accused of sneaking a friend into the move theater.
Antonia Rader and her husband were charged with disorderly conduct after Antonia was caught on video assaulting one of the teens, Augusta station WJBF reported. However, the parents of the girls are demanding justice and said the charges aren’t severe enough.
Antonia Rader, 63, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct after hitting one of the teen girls she accused of sneaking a friend into the movie theater. (WJBF / video screenshot)
The incident unfolded during an April 20 showing of “Pet Semetary” at a movie theater in Thomson, Georgia. The teens said the couple told management that some kids had sneaked a friend in through the exit door. Theater staff looked into the claims but left without removing anyone.
Dissatisfied, Rader and her husband decided to take matters into their own hands once the film ended.
Video from the incident shows Rader confronting the teens, insisting that “we need to need to respect each other” after accusing them of sneaking someone in without paying. Things escalated, however, and it wasn’t long before the 63-year-old began pelting the teens with racist abuse.
“Hush! You hush!” she demands, before dubbing the girls “a bunch of monkeys.” “You’re going to end up on the streets doing drugs.”
Sharell Yarbert, the mother of one of the teens, said she was pulling up when she saw Rader’s husband, Larry, hit her 14-year-old daughter. She told WJBF she immediately jumped out of the car to intervene.
Yarbert’s daughter, Tocara, pointed to the spot on her face where she claims Larry Rader, 78, hit her. She said the area was swollen the next day but had since gone down.
The Raders were arrested and charged in the incident, but Larry Rader insisted it was the teens who were the aggressors.
“One of the larger, older teenage girls ran and knocked my wife over,” he told the station. “Ran over her, pushed her down. And I bent over to try to protect her and as I was doing that, protect her from being kicked and all that, as I got up one of them, either the same or another one knocked me down.”
Larry Rader said the teen didn’t hit him with her fist but with her body, and likened the assault to “a football move.”
When asked about his wife’s racist insults toward the teens, Mr. Rader said he didn’t recall her using such language but wasn’t “going to get on her about it” even if she had.
“I’m just going to go along with that,” he added. “It sounds like that could have infuriated them and made them more aggressive.”
Kamiskia Few, the mother of one of the 14-year-old girls, said her daughter was sent to the hospital with a contusion to her eye after she was assaulted by Antonia Rader. The blow left a bruise under her eye that could be seen several days after the incident.
“[We’re] surprised that an older couple would really try to fight us and we’re so young and didn’t say anything to them or start with them and wasn’t disrespectful or nothing,” Few’s daughter told the station.
“I felt like they were being racist,” Yarbert’s daughter added.” I didn’t really care about that part because I know who I am.”
The teens insisted that they weren’t the ones who had sneaked someone into the theater.
Shanta Bly, whose daughter was among those involved in the fight, is still fuming over the incident and said she wants to see more than a disorderly conduct charge on the Rader’s records. The other parents agreed, saying the couple should face tougher charges, including a hate crime.
The case is expected to go to court June 11.
Watch more in the video below.
