A professor is charged with a hate crime and accused of spitting on a Black woman and hurling racial slurs at her and her 7-year-old daughter outside a suburban Chicago grocery store earlier this month, court records said, reports NBC News/Associated Press.
In addition to the felony hate crime charge, Alberto Friedmann is also charged with felony aggravated assault with a motor vehicle, according to court records from Cook County.
The alleged incident on the afternoon of Sept. 7 occurred outside a Jewel-Osco store in Oak Park, a village about 10 miles from Chicago.
Friedmann, 53, teaches neurokinesiology at the National University of Health Sciences in Lombard, Illinois.
On the day of the alleged attack, the woman and her daughter were parked in front of the store while they waited for the woman’s mother to finish shopping, court records said.
While in the car, the woman heard someone “honking and yelling” and saw a man, later identified as Friedmann, in a Jaguar behind her.
The woman heard the man yell using a racial slur, “Move your f—— car,” court records said.
The woman motioned for the driver behind her to drive around, records said. But the driver continued yelling racial slurs and exited his car and approached the woman’s car, court documents state.
The woman attempted to exit her car, but the man pushed the door closed, then spat in her face, according to court records. The defendant told the woman he spat on her “because he doesn’t like Black people,” court records said.
The woman’s mother, who had exited the store, witnessed the man yelling racial slurs and saw him spit on her daughter, records said.
