The authorities are now looking for a woman who coughed on a baby in a stroller after a verbal fight with the child's mother at a restaurant. The mother of the baby said that the woman targeted them after she heard them speaking in Spanish but the police said the woman targeted them for not being socially distant enough.
Hate crime
The incident happened on June 12 at 5:25 p.m at a Yogurtland establishment in San Jose, California. The suspect, a white woman who is in her 60s, stood in line in front of a mother and her 1-year-old baby who was in a stroller. The white woman allegedly became upset with the mother because they were not maintaining proper social distancing.
Sergeant Enrique Garcia from the San Jose Police Department said in a press release that the preliminary investigation revealed that the suspect was upset with the mother for not maintaining proper social distancing. This led to the suspect removing her face mask, got close to the baby in the stroller, and coughed 2 to 3 times.
According to the mother, the motive behind the white woman's action was deeper than that and that it was race-related. Mireya Mora, the mother of the 1-year-old boy who was coughed on, told ABC News' San Francisco station KGO that the white woman was a racist because the family in front of her during the incident was white.
Mora added that she and her grandmother are Hispanic and the white woman started harassing them when they heard them talking in Spanish. Mora said that her son had a slight fever after the incident but he is not showing other symptoms and she is hopeful that he does not have the coronavirus.
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The San Jose Police Department is now asking the public for help in identifying the white woman in the case. The police have described the white woman as medium build, in her 60s, wearing glasses, a gray bandana, long sleeve shirt with gray vertical lines, patterned tennis shoes and white dress pants during the incident.
Mora said that the woman deliberately coughed on the baby's face and that it happened so fast that they were in shock. As of now the suspect remains unidentified and on the run. Anyone with information is asked to contact the San Jose Police Department's Assault Unit.
Other incidents
On June 15, Allison Goodbaum was at a bagel shop when she saw a woman coughing without covering her mouth or without a mask. Goodbaum told "Good Morning America" that she did not say anything to the woman but instead told the staff about it.
Goodbaum said the woman heard her complain to the employees of the bagel shop and that was when things escalated. The woman walked up to Goodbaum and intentionally coughed on her.
According to ABC News, although the woman in the video may not face any criminal charges, Goodbaum said that she is considering pressing charges herself based on the reports that the woman may work in the medical field and she does not think that the woman should be treating patients.
