Crime & Safety
Mom, Daughter Subject To Racist Attack In Worcester: Attorney
The mother and 13-year-old daughter were called "horrifying expletives," and an attorney says police have not investigated.
WORCESTER, MA — An attendant at a Shrewsbury Street gas station hurled racist insults at a mother and her 13-year-old daughter, and city police have failed to investigate, an attorney representing the family says.
LaToya Lewis was getting gas at the station June 4 and had her three children with her when the attendant told her she wouldn't be served at the gas station in the future, and that she and her 13-year-old daughter were "Black c--ts," according to a letter written by attorney Sophia Hall, of Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights.
"This racist and hateful behavior escalated after Lewis notified the full-service gas attendant that he had allowed the gas tank to overflow," Hall wrote. "The gas attendant became violent: he physically kicked and hit Lewis' car causing substantial damage and terrifying her children."
According to Hall, Worcester police told Lewis she could file a report in pursuit of a car insurance claim but offered no other help. Lewis eventually went to the Worcester Human Rights Commission, but police still have not taken action, Hall said.
Worcester police said that the department did investigate the incident as a hate crime, but that both sides gave conflicting statements. The matter was turned over to a clerk-magistrate for a hearing set for Sept. 11, police said.
Hall sent the letter to Mayor Joseph Petty and police Chief Steven Sargent. The letter demands a "full-scale investigation of this hate crime."
"Recent events and the nationwide cry for racial justice makes clear that violent and hateful altercations are not isolated incidents and that no community is immune," she wrote.
