A woman who authorities said screamed that she was “sick of fancy white (people)” as she attacked a man with a hammer at a Virginia gas station was arrested Wednesday at her New Jersey home.
Angela M. Jones, 26, of Newark, is in an Essex County jail awaiting extradition to Caroline County, Virginia, to face charges in the Saturday attack at an Exxon station in the community of Ruther Glen. She faces charges of malicious wounding, assault and destruction of property.
The attack is being investigated as a possible hate crime, authorities said.
Caroline County Sheriff A.A. Lippa Jr. said a woman later identified as Jones used a hammer to damage the victim's 2016 Porsche SUV and the boat he was pulling before she attacked him. Jones is accused of hurling racial slurs and referring to the victim as "rich" and "white" during the attack.
She fled after the attack, but eyewitnesses and surveillance footage from the Exxon station led investigators to identify Jones as the suspect, Lippa said. A key to identifying the suspect was a photo that a witness took of Jones’ vehicle as she and the victim struggled with one another, the sheriff said.
The victim told WFXT in Boston that he and his wife were driving home to Uxbridge, Massachusetts, from Fort Meyers, Florida, when they stopped for gas and coffee. The man, whom the news station identified only as Bob, was pumping gas when Jones began screaming at him, he said.
Watch the victim and his wife talk about the attack below.
"I hear this lady two pump islands over yelling something about a message. I'm like, 'I don't know who she's talking to,'" Bob told the news station. "A young black woman gets in my face and starts yelling at me about, 'You got a message for me, you trying to send me a message, you sending me a message with your fancy car and fancy boat.'"
Bob told WTVR in Richmond that the woman grabbed a hammer from her own vehicle and began hitting his SUV and boat.
Bob said he tackled her to the ground to prevent her from causing more damage, and she started to punch him and claw at him. Photos taken at the scene show bloody gouges in the victim’s face.
When Bob’s wife, Kathy, returned from inside the gas station, the attacker turned on her and spit at her, hurling racial slurs, authorities said.
"She ran over to me, and started to come towards me. She looked at me and said 'I am so sick of you white (expletives),'" Kathy told WFXT.
Lippa told WTVR that the racial slurs prompted investigators to look at the incident as a potential hate crime.
“According to the victim, there were racial slurs that were yelled at her before she spit at her, and that’s what we’re looking into as far as it being a hate crime,” Lippa said.
Bob told the Richmond news station that Jones fled after her hammer broke.
"That's when she figured out she better get out of there because she didn't have a weapon anymore," he said.
About the Author
