| UNFAIR PARK | Racism on Trial Bidisha Rudra has filed a civil lawsuit she hopes will teach a Plano woman a lesson. BY JACOB VAUGHN B idisha Rudra was just wrapping up a night out with friends when a woman approached and began hurling racist insults at them. At the time, neither Ru- dra nor her friends could have known a video of what followed would make national headlines. “I hate you fucking Indians,” Esmeralda Upton yelled at Rudra and her friends. “If things are so great in your country, then stay there.” Rudra and her friends are Indian Ameri- can. They’re all U.S. citizens, and Rudra has lived in the States longer than she ever lived in India. The insults escalated into a physi- cal attack that Rudra and her friends caught on video. Now, Rudra is suing her attacker for compensatory and punitive damages in a Collin County civil court. “Life has not been the same since the in- cident, to put it lightly,” Rudra told the Ob- server by phone last Wednesday. “There’s a lot of trauma, emotional distress and a feel- ing of insecurity that keeps haunting me all the time. The assailant’s words keep ringing in my ears when I go to sleep.” Rudra and her friends all tried to avoid the conflict on Aug. 24, but the insults con- tinued in the parking lot of Sixty Vines, where they had just eaten dinner. Rudra and her friends took out their phones to record what was happening, and Upton flew into a rage. She attacked Rudra and her friends and threatened to shoot them. “You turn off that phone or I swear to God I’ll fucking shoot your ass,” Upton said. Rudra and her friends tried to get away, but Upton wouldn’t leave them alone. Plano police officers separated everyone when they got there a few minutes later, but Upton was allowed to leave after refusing to take a breathalyzer test. Police arrested her the next day on two misdemeanor charges of assault causing bodily injury and terroris- tic threats. In a press release at the time, the Plano Police Department also said the incident was under investigation and more charges could be filed. The department later added that the FBI is investigating the incident as a hate crime. (The FBI in Dallas has declined to comment and wouldn’t confirm whether it’s investigating the incident.) Earlier this month, Rudra filed the civil 44 lawsuit against Upton, saying the whole in- cident has left her afraid and distressed until Screenshot from Facebook this day. She’s developed high blood pres- sure and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), has trouble sleeping and lacks an appetite, according to her suit. On top of feeling shame, humiliation, deep anxi- ety and embarrassment, Rudra also says she fears for her and her family’s safety. Rudra had never experienced anything like this before, she said. But she feels racial tensions have risen in recent years and she now fears for her and her family’s safety. Ru- dra said she’s afraid of Upton, “and also peo- ple who think like her, who are like her.” “Any minority is under some sort of threat in today’s world,” she said. The law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP has taken on the case after it was re- ferred to them by the Alliance for Asian American Justice, a national pro-bono orga- nization that advocates for victims of anti- Asian hate crimes. Veronica Smith Moyé, the lead attorney in the suit, said video footage of the incident outraged her. She’d seen the video before her firm took on Rudra’s case. “It’s horrible when something like this happens to any- one, but when it happens in the area where you live, you can’t help but feel it person- ally,” Moyé said. “The point really is to send a message that this kind of behavior has real world consequences and won’t be tolerated,” Moyé said. “This kind of behavior has no place in a civilized society and people need to understand that.” Moyé said plenty of people experience things like what Rudra went through last month, but they don’t always have the chance to fight back legally. “That’s why it’s all the more important that someone like Ms. Rudra does so,” she said. If it weren’t for the video of the incident, Moyé said nothing might have come of it. “The videotape is re- vealing to the world things that many of us live with and that have been ignored for a long time.” Upton couldn’t be reached for comment, but she admitted to police that she hit Ru- dra, according to an arrest affidavit obtained Esmeralda Upton of Plano, right, berated four women outside of the Sixty Vines restaurant on Dallas Parkway in West Plano on Aug. 24. by WFAA. Upton continued to make racist comments when talking with officers on the scene. She told police she got agitated be- cause the group called her a “white woman.” Upton first told police she was a “first-gen- eration” American but later said she was ac- tually second-generation. She told them she was “Mexican American” and “Native American.” According to the affidavit, Upton said she punched Rudra’s wrist because they were “videoing and saying all of this … that I wasn’t doing. “And that’s what they do,” Upton said, ac- cording to the affidavit. “Just like the Black people.” Upton posted a $10,000 bond after she was arrested. Plano PD has yet to provide any updates on whether it intends to pursue additional charges, such as a hate crimes enhancement. Such incidents have been on the rise in recent years. According to the FBI’s tally, hate crimes hit the highest level in two de- cades, with more 11,100 incidents docu- mented by law enforcement agencies across the country. The FBI hasn’t yet released its 2021 data, but researchers at the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, found that hate crimes had spiked by more than 20% last year in 20 major U.S. cities. That study also noted that anti-Asian hate crimes had swelled by 224% when compared with the prior year. While the whole experience has been traumatic, Rudra said she’s also been over- whelmed by support she’s gotten from friends, family and others since the incident. She said, “At the end of the day, I feel there is more love in our world than hate, and we should all do our part to create more aware- ness and advocate against racial hatred to make the world a better place for our next generation.” ▼ COURTS INNOCENT BUT SUED L A HUNT COUNTY JURY UNANIMOUSLY FOUND AN EX-COP NOT-GUILTY IN THE MURDER OF A BLACK MAN. BY PATRICK STRICKLAND ast Thursday, a a Hunt County jury unanimously found Shaun Lucas, a former police officer who shot and killed a Black man named Jonathan Price in October 2020, not guilty of murder. Lucas, who was fired from the Wolfe City Police Department following the killing, ad- mitted to shooting 31-year-old Price, but he insisted he was acting in self-defense, a claim the prosecution denied. Price’s mother, Marcella Louis, has filed a federal lawsuit against Lucas and Wolfe City in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Louis’ attorneys were not available for comment. Filed on Sept. 3, the wrongful death suit claims Lucas shot and killed Price in viola- tion of the man’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures. Wolfe City has a population of around 1,100 and is about 70 miles northeast of Dallas. The suit also notes that the city “is re- sponsible for the operation of the Wolfe City Police Department and the conduct of its of- ficers.” Wolfe City didn’t respond to the Ob- server’s request for comment. The fatal shooting took place on the night of Oct. 3, 2020, after Lucas had shown up at a convenience store respond- ing to a disturbance call. Price had report- edly broken up a scuffle between two other individuals. According to authorities, Price ap- proached Lucas and tried to shake his hand several times. Testifying this week, Lucas claimed that Price appeared intoxicated and had reached for his Taser, although wit- nesses disputed that claim. The police offi- cer first tased Price and then shot him in the chest. An investigation by the Texas Rangers concluded that Lucas had responded with his firearm in a way that was “not objec- tively reasonable.” During the trial, Lucas’ attorneys argued that Price had posed a threat to the police officer. “We’re very gratified that the jury found our client not guilty,” Toby Shook, one of Lu- cas’ attorneys, told the Observer by phone. “He’d been waiting two years in jail for his day in court. It was a very tragic situation, obviously. A man lost his life, but the evi- dence showed he was acting in self-defense, and that’s what the jury found.” Meanwhile, the federal civil suit alleges that Lucas “was not in danger of serious bodily injury or death at the time that he shot Mr. Price.” That suit requests a jury trial. Lee Merritt, the Dallas-based civil rights attorney who has represented the >> p6 SEPTEMBER 29–OCTOBER 5, 2022 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.com dallasobserver.com
