SWAMPSCOTT — A woman was arraigned in Lynn District Court Thursday for allegedly driving her car toward a group of three women and five children while yelling racial slurs at them during an incident that occurred outside an ice cream shop in Swampscott last month.
Lynn resident Rhonda Wozniak, 60, pleaded not guilty to eight counts each of civil rights violation and assault with a dangerous weapon, and one count each of disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct.
The police report alleges that on the evening of July 28, Ebony White, Starr High, and Shawana Satterwhite, along with their five young children, all of whom Black, and also from Lynn, had just finished a meal at Cookie Monstah and were walking back to their cars when a woman in a white Ford Escape, later identified as Wozniak, sped through the Vinnin Square parking lot and drove close to where the mothers and their children were walking.
According to the report, White stated that when the SUV did not slow down, she asked the operator, “you’re not going to stop for children?” White then said Wozniak drove back around to where the eight people were located and opened her door to yell “I hate you Black people.”
Wozniak then allegedly proceeded to call the group a racial slur, which caused the children present to become visibly upset.
A video of the altercation, taken by Satterwhite, shows the woman leaving the parking lot as she yells at the parties to “call the police.”
“She called us all types of names, said we needed to go back to where we came from,” White said Saturday during a rally protesting the incident in Vinnin Square. “Then she stopped and opened her car up and was still saying stuff as we had our kids there.”
Lynn District Court Judge Cesar Achilla set bail at $1,000 and ordered Wozniak to have no contact with the victims. She is scheduled to return to court on October 19 for a pre-trial hearing.
“This behavior has no place in this community,” said Swampscott Police Chief Ronald Madigan. “This incident is particularly troubling given that children were present and were subject to vile racial slurs. I am hopeful that our response to this incident sends the message that this behavior will not be tolerated in Swampscott.”
