Written By @cabbagepatchgrl
Police have arrested the suspect responsible for the hate crime attack on a Black jogger in Queens, NY.
53-year-old Lorena Delaguna was arrested and charged inside her home in Woodside on Monday morning for second-degree assault and attempted aggravated harassment.
Last week, the NYPD released surveillance video of the August 17 attack near 53rd Place and Broadway. The video shows a woman walking on the sidewalk as a Black woman jogs around the corner. The other woman is then seen yelling something to the Black jogger before throwing a glass bottle.
APPREHENDED!! The perpetrator in this incident has been arrested. https://t.co/cdkStQJd9T
— NYPD Hate Crimes (@NYPDHateCrimes) September 21, 2020
The jogger, Tiffany Johnson, seemed to be startled at first but continued with her run. Police say that Johnson wasn’t hurt, but she heard the woman yelling racial slurs at her.
Johnson told NBC New York that she was concerned for her safety. “I don’t like to have that type of energy around me, so I was like; OK, I just need to get away from her, and to me, walking away was the easiest way of doing that,” she said.
Unfortunately, the surveillance video did not show what Johnson said happened next.
“She did follow me, kept pursuing me. People saw it; people were getting upset, somebody even threw a bagel in her direction,” Johnson said, adding that, “It was scary, I didn’t want to see anyone get hurt, I just left.”
The incident took place during what was supposed to have been a 5-kilometer run. Johnson said she is a passionate runner and jogs several times a week.
“At the time, I just wanted to move on with my life and forget it ever happened,” She said. “I was glad it got caught (on video), and I could take it to the police.”
Neighbors in the area said that they recognized Delaguna in the surveillance video, and she was later identified.
Meanwhile, Johnson said that she had a message for Delaguna, saying,” I would definitely say to her, ‘I’m not the n-word. Nobody is the n-word. She needs to do some soul searching as to why she needs somebody to be that because that’s not what I am, that’s not who we are.”
