By John Dempsey, WLS-AM News
(CHICAGO) Cook County prosecutors have filed hate crime charges against a 26 year old woman from southwest suburban Alsip, after an online video recording emerged of her using the n-word against an African-American man and his wife on Chicago’s south side this past summer.
Jessica Sanders was attending an event at the South Shore Cultural center when she got into an argument with Ernest Crim, who is black. Crim began recording the encounter on his phone and recorded Sanders repeatedly calling him the n-word, and then spitting at Crim’s wife.
After the recording went viral, authorities charged Sanders with battery, and two felony counts of a hate crime. Sanders told “The Big John and Ray Show” on WLS that she is sorry. “I would apologize to him, because it was wrong of me to say that specific word. I should have called him ignorant I should have said something else, but either way I mean, he’s not going to accept it but it is out there. I would have said it before I got charged. I mean, it was wrong of me.”
LISTEN to Jessica Sanders’ on with Big John and Ray, Tuesday morning on WLS-AM 890.
Sanders says the argument stemmed from a dispute over a bean bag toss game. She says she is not a racist, and to her the n-word is synonymous with someone being an ignorant person. “Caucasian, Asian, purple, pink, it doesn’t matter what color you are”, Sanders said, “If you’re being ignorant, you’re being ignorant. We were in the middle of a game. I respectfully went up to her. I don’t understand how it go so blown out of proportion that it needed to get this far. I have nieces and nephews of African-American descent. I have plenty of friends. I have a very diverse group of friends. I’ve been like that. I make friends wherever I go. I have friends of every race, every ethnicity, everything.”
Crim tells the Chicago Sun Times he will not accept Sanders apology, because he does not think it would be sincere. He said the next time he sees Sanders, it will be in court, and he wants to see the hate crime charges stick.
“I feel that if you do the crime, then you should do the time,” Crim said. “You used that word, probably 30 times before I even hit record, and then you spit on my wife? I think that’s hate.”
@ 2016 WLS-AM News
