Rochester woman who called child racist slurs at park will face disorderly conduct charges
A woman who admitted to hurling racist slurs at a child with autism at a southern Minnesota park — and subsequently raised hundreds of thousands of dollars on a crowdfunding website — will face disorderly conduct charges, the city attorney said Tuesday.
The incident occurred in April at Roy Sutherland Playground in Rochester, and a video of a subsequent confrontation went viral. The Rochester City Attorney's Office said the case "involved a large amount of evidence and required careful consideration of potential charging options across multiple offices."
"Given the sensitive and complicated nature of this case, along with the high level of public attention, completing the necessary reviews and conversations with the victim's family took longer than usual," the attorney's office said.
According to a draft criminal complaint, the woman repeatedly called an 8-year-old Somali boy a racial slur after he took an applesauce pouch from her diaper bag. The boy's father said he is "profoundly and visibly autistic" and "does not understand typical boundaries."
The boy's father and the witness who recorded the viral video both heard the racial slurs, and the woman admitted on video to using them, "stating that she can call him that 'if he acts like one,'" the complaint said. She also called the witness a slur on video, and admitted she was going to hit the boy because "he took my son's stuff."
After the video went viral, the woman started an online fundraiser, which garnered more than $700,000. She said she needed the funds to help protect her family.
In the wake of the incident, the boy's family said they "no longer feel safe" in the community. The Rochester NAACP called for the woman to be charged and started a fundraiser of its own for the family, which raised about half as much as the woman's.
The woman has not yet been formally charged; a District Court judge needs to review and approve the draft criminal complaint, the attorney's office said. If and when that happens, she will face three misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct. The complaint states she "wrongfully and unlawfully engaged in offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct, or in offensive, obscene, or abusive language that would reasonably tend to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others."
Note: The video above originally aired May 7, 2025.