Stephanie Rapkin, right, was arrested on Saturday after video, left, showed her spitting at a black teen protester.
Facebook/Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office
The Wisconsin lawyer who was caught on video spitting on a 17-year-old Black protester at a Black Lives Matters demonstration near Milwaukee has been charged with a hate crime.
Stephanie Rapkin could face up to a year in jail for the incident in which she parked her car in the way of the anti-racism protest before confronting 17-year-old Eric Lucas, according to a criminal complaint reported by Wisconsin’s WTMJ.
Lucas approached Rapkin surrounded by other protesters while chanting “I’m black and I’m proud,” according to the complaint, and as he approached her, Rapkin spit at him, which landed on his face and mouth area, and on the top of his shirt.
The criminal complaint says that when police questioned her about the incident, Rapkin claimed she spit on Lucas because she is a cancer survivor and felt “threatened” none of the protesters were wearing masks. Rapkin can also be seen in the video without a mask.
Rapkin was arrested again one day after the incident on charges of battery and disorderly conduct, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel previously reported, when she resisted arrest and kneed an officer in the groin. The charge has a maximum penalty of six years in jail if convicted, according to the complaint.
Insider’s Ashley Collman previously reported that Lucas said he was “mentally and physically shaken” by the incident, which he described as being “assaulted by an adult in my own community during a pandemic.”
“Again and again I am viewed not as a child but as a color,” Lucas said, according to WDJT.
Urban Milwaukee reported that Rapkin works as an estate planning and probate lawyer, but the incident has sparked calls for her to be disbarred.
