LOS ANGELES – A woman's racist tirade and threats at a CVS in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Eagle Rock on Tuesday was captured on a widely viewed video and is being investigated by police.
In the disturbing rant, the woman can be seen jumping up and down at the entrance of the store while screaming the N-word. She continues to shout racial obscenities and threatening messages after she exits.
“I would kill a [expletive] but the law says I can’t kill the [expletive],” she yells in the parking lot, directly facing the cellphone camera. “If the law didn’t say I couldn’t kill all the [expletive] they’d all be dead.”
A customer inside the store could be heard suggesting she was on drugs, something the woman disputed in a hate-fueled rant.
The video was subsequently shared on social media by activist and writer Shaun King and others. It had been viewed more than 1 million times as of Thursday morning.
The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed the incident was reported to them on Wednesday and that they have taken a hate incident report.
A man who identified himself as her neighbor of nine years in Eagle Rock told KTLA the woman's name is Heather Patton, and that she has a history of racist outbursts and erratic behavior.
“We had to file restraining orders against her and her husband for wanting to threaten us, to assault us. They were yelling racial slurs,” said the man, who asked to be only identified as Tony.
He added that he and his mother are of Italian descent, and Patton has told them to go back to their country and this is not a place for them.
Tony provided security camera footage of the woman, including one video where she threatens to slit someone’s throat. Another video appears to show a man and a woman engaged in a physical struggle and yelling at one another in the middle of the street.
Tony said he installed the cameras after she vandalized his father’s truck. The evidence was used in the court proceedings, he added.
