You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Felony Charges Dropped Against African-American Victim of Dallas Attack

HeadlineApr 04, 2019

In Texas, police have dropped a felony arrest warrant against an African-American woman who was threatened with a gun and brutally beaten by a white man in a Dallas parking lot on March 21. Twenty-four-year-old L’Daijohnique Lee says what should have been a minor traffic dispute quickly escalated to violence when 30-year-old Austin Shuffield followed her, brandished an unlicensed handgun and slapped Lee’s cellphone out of her hands as she tried to call 911. After Lee fought back, Shuffield repeatedly punched her in the head while allegedly shouting racial slurs. The assault left Lee with a concussion and cranial swelling. Lee was the first to be charged in the case—on felony criminal mischief charges—for allegedly smashing the windows of her assailant’s truck after she was assaulted by him. But when a bystander’s video of the incident went viral on social media, prompting street protests, prosecutors dropped charges against Lee on Wednesday. Her attacker, Austin Shuffield, now faces multiple charges.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top