A white woman is under fire after allegedly slapping a Black boy and calling him the n-word because the fast-food restaurant where he worked was out of her favorite food.
“It’s been a traumatic experience as it would be with anyone,” Ronald ‘Skip’ Kelly said of his client, the 17-year-old assaulted amid a racist tirade on March 30 in Enid, Oklahoma, about a hundred miles north of Oklahoma City.
“He’s obviously dealing with the trauma of exactly what happened to him and also have as much stamina and strength as he can for people who are coming up to him and trying to say something about the incident,” Kelly said.
The 17-year-old’s name is not being made public, as Kelly says he’s having a tough time dealing with the assault from Rachel Scheuerman, 71, who is white, when she entered the Little Caesars, drive-thru to order pizza and Crazy Bread.
The 17-year-old worked at the restaurant part-time and told Scheuerman the store was out of Crazy Bread and that set her off.
“Making racial slurs to him and degrading him about what his educational level was and making a comment about do you know what racism 101 is,” Kelly said of the woman’s comments.
Scheuerman continued her racist assault once she drove around to the drive-thru window captured on surveillance video.
“She asked him when she was making the racial remarks, she asked him did that hurt his feelings and he said no, and then she proceeded to use the physical contact and slap him upside the face and said, I bet that hurt,” Kelly said.
After the assault, she paid for her pizza and drove off. The 17-year-old and his mom filed a police report with the Enid Police Department. A spokesman with the department tells Atlanta Black Star police tracked down Scheuerman at her home later that night, where she confessed to the racist assault.
“She tries to justify it on the basis she didn’t see anything wrong with calling him the n-word or the f—–g n-word because that’s what she does all the time,” Kelly said of Scheuerman’s confession to police.
The Enid Police Department spokesman went on to say its officers did not arrest Scheuerman for the attack because under Oklahoma law, officers cannot make arrests for misdemeanors when they do not witness the alleged crime for themselves.
However, Enid police do take issue with claims they did nothing to move the case forward quickly. Police say they turned over the incident report to the local district attorney’s office the next morning.
“We’re still bothered with the fact they only charged her with a misdemeanor statute,” Kelly said in frustration of Scheuerman’s charges. “There is a statute under the child abuse statue that is a felony that she could have easily been charged with and held to a higher degree of accountability,” Kelly went on to say.
Scheuerman was arrested two weeks after the incident and charged with malicious harassment based on race, which is a misdemeanor in Oklahoma.
Kelly says he is still gathering information, including requesting bodycam video of Scheuerman’s confession before moving forward with a lawsuit.
Scheuerman’s bond appearance is set for May 12.
Atlanta Black Star sought more information from the Garfield County District Attorney on the case, but did not hear back from the DA’s office at the time of this report.
