Rochester City Attorney Hit With Flood of Messages Over Anti-White Slur Prosecutions

ROCHESTER, MN – After the Rochester City Attorney’s office decided to formally request charges against a white woman who allegedly used a racial slur towards a juvenile she caught stealing items from her child’s diaper bag, thousands of social media users across the country are contacting the city attorney asking whether anyone within the city has ever been charged for using anti-white slurs.

Oxford Languages defines the term double standard as, “a rule or principle which is unfairly applied in different ways to different people or groups,” and it seems social media users are curious as to whether the Rochester City Attorney’s office is engaging in said practice with the decision to charge Shiloh Hendrix regarding a viral incident this past April.

Hendrix was reportedly charged with three misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct, which each carry a penalty of 90 days in jail plus fines of up to $1,000 per count, in relation to a video posted online showcasing the aftermath of her encounter with a juvenile who she apparently caught stealing items from her infant’s diaper bag.

In the aforementioned viral video, Hendrix is being recorded by a man later identified as Sharmake Beyle Omar while at Roy Sutherland Playground in Rochester, with Omar aggressively pursuing Hendrix and repeatedly asking if she used a slur against the child she reportedly caught red-handed stealing her belongings.

“You call him a n*gger, the child? Did you call the child the n*gger word,” Omar repeatedly asked while recording Hendrix, later challenging the 36-year-old woman with, “Okay, why don’t you have the balls to say it again?” Hendrix, who appeared frustratingly done with the pestering brought forth by Omar, responds with, “F*ck you, n*gger – n*gger, n*gger, n*gger.”

After successfully baiting Hendrix into using the epithet on video, Omar would go on to share the clip on TikTok, with the video going viral on the aforesaid platform as well as gaining virality via a reupload shared to X (formerly Twitter). Needless to say, the video garnered mixed reactions, with some outraged over the woman’s purported use of a slur toward a child and with others defending her actions while also criticizing Omar’s own harassment of the woman.

With the attention the incident gathered in the days and weeks following the uploading of the video online, Omar wound up being the recipient of some unexpected attention after it was learned he’d been previously charged in 2023 for criminal sexual misconduct involving a 16-year-old female victim. Considering the nature of Omar’s previous charges, many were wondering what the Somali immigrant was doing at a children’s park to begin with.

However, one month prior to the Hendrix’s viral incident, the Olmsted County Attorney’s Office oddly dismissed the charges against Omar and his codefendant “in the interest of justice.” While Omar was receiving online criticism and accusations of pedophilia, Hendrix was arguably enduring far worse backlash from online activists, with her home address, phone number, and social security number reportedly being leaked.

When Hendrix launched a GiveSendGo campaign to raise funds so her family could relocate, TikTok influencers were fuming at the fact she was able to raise over half a million dollars within days regarding the threats made against her and her children’s lives. Meanwhile, none of the outraged TikTok influencers addressed the then-glaring hypocrisy of raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for Karmelo Anthony around the same time of the Hendrix incident – which literally involved a black teen arrested for fatally stabbing 17-year-old Austin Metcalf.

Nearly four months after the incident, the Rochester City Attorney’s office pursued charges against Hendrix, with Mayor Kim Norton releasing a statement regarding the decision where she said, “This was a situation that deeply affected many people, especially our communities of color, and caused real turmoil in our community,” further claiming Hendrix’s excited utterance of a slur four months ago harbors a “lasting impact” on not only a local level but also a “state and national level.”

Users on the social media platform X displayed a mixture of responses to the news, with some being outraged at the charging decision, others not being surprised considering the racial dynamics at play, and others wondering if anyone within the city of Rochester has ever been prosecuted for calling a white person a slur in public before.

It’s that last mentioned sentiment shared online that spawned a bit of online activism/internet mischief, with X user “SixMillionNerds” sharing a post about Hendrix facing charges and captioning it with, “+1 507-328-2100 Ask them if they've ever filed charges against anyone for calling a White ‘Cr*cker’ etc,” with the post gaining tens of thousands of interactions and nearly a million views since its August 26th posting.



Throughout the comments on the post, social media users shared their experiences with calling the shared phone number featured on the post, which is the line to the Rochester City Attorney’s office. Many described being hung up on, while others pointed out that many calls are now going straight to voicemail with others later adding that said voicemail box is now full.

Hendrix is aware of the charging decision coming out of Minnesota, which she’s alluded to having left Rochester with her husband and two children and possibly even the state entirely.

In a statement shared by Hendrix via her active GiveSendGo campaign, she noted, “I am sure you are all aware of the ‘charges’ that the liberal state of Minnesota is trying to burden me with. I guarantee you that I will NOT be backing down, and I WILL be fighting back. I have an excellent team on my side who are knowledgeable and trustworthy. I am confident in our success. In the United States, we are protected by the First Amendment, and no amount of hurt feelings can change that.”

While it’s unclear whether Hendrix fled the state of Minnesota following the viral incident, if that is the case, the possibility of her facing extradition on misdemeanor charges can vary depending on where her family relocated to considering legal concepts like dual criminality and many states’ reluctance to bear the burden of interstate transport and inmate housing costs for the out-of-state arresting agency.

Speculation on extradition aside, what’s hard to ignore in this case is what appears to be a double standard regarding offensive speech we’ve seen play out nationally for years. In a time when angered rioters can hurl slurs at police officers with impunity, where black suspects can literally get away with murder so long as a certain epithet is allegedly said to them, a white person who mutters a slur toward a juvenile actively stealing their belongings is somehow the subject of a criminal prosecution.
 
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Comments

Melvin

What is hate speech?? Can a definition be given, or is hate speech what ever a person feels it to be. If there is to be a definition then that definition should be neutral of skin color and should include any and all words so as to apply equally to all. AAs an example I could be offended by some one saying that my blue eyes are offensive and that I should be shunned by society,

Paul

File an appeal until such time that he can show where he charged others from different nationalities for the same "crime".

James

Black racism is alive and well now in the US thanks to Barry Obama the socialist ex-president!

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