Rochester woman who hurled racial slurs at child in park will be charged

ROCHESTER – City attorneys announced Tuesday they plan to file misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges against the woman who attacked a boy with racial slurs at a park here in April.

Shiloh Hendrix faces three counts of disorderly conduct. The aftermath of the event was filmed by a witness who confronted her for using racist language toward the then-8-year-old boy, who is Black and autistic.

The moment went viral in early May and drew further controversy after Hendrix started an online fundraiser that raised more than $800,000 from people across the country, many of whom expressed white nationalist views in comments and usernames.

Officials with the Rochester City Attorney’s Office said the case took a long time to put together in part because it involved a large amount of evidence and could have resulted in charges from multiple jurisdictions.

It also took longer than usual to interview the victim’s family given the public attention. Multiple people came forward claiming to be related to the victim after the Rochester branch of the NAACP and other groups raised money online in response to Hendrix’s fundraiser.

“As the legal process moves forward, the city recognizes not only the significant attention and emotion surrounding this case, but also the complex and lasting impacts situations like this have on communities of color and our broader community,” city officials said in the statement.

Disorderly conduct charges could result in up to 90 days in jail or a $1,000 fine, though the maximum punishment is unlikely under Minnesota sentencing guidelines.

“When I met this young boy, within 30 seconds I could see the tremendous challenges he lives with and that he has a serious disability,” Rochester NAACP President Wale Elegbede said in the statement. “Shiloh Hendrix also saw the state of this child, and instead of bringing compassion, she inflicted hatred, harm, racism, and trauma upon him. She has shown no remorse for her actions.”

According to a court complaint, the victim and his family were at Soldier’s Field Memorial Park on April 28 when the victim’s father saw him pulling applesauce from a diaper bag that didn’t belong to his family.

The boy’s father tried to return the applesauce at the same time as Hendrix approached, but the boy climbed on playground equipment to get away.

Court records say the boy’s father told police Hendrix became visibly angry and repeatedly used racial epithets, causing the boy to freeze. The complaint says Hendrix angrily grabbed the applesauce back. The boy’s father was concerned she would strike his child.

Witness Sharmake Omar confronted Hendrix soon after on video about calling the boy the racial slur. She repeated the slur to Omar, at one point telling him the Black child took something from her and her toddler.

The court complaint says Hendrix “wrongfully and unlawfully engaged in offensive … or abusive language that would reasonably tend to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others.”

Hendrix created a fundraiser on a Christian crowdfunding platform soon after Omar’s video spread online, saying her family had been put into a “dire situation” by the attention the video drew.

Hendrix wrote on the page that the Black boy stole from her 18-month-old’s diaper bag at the park and she “called the kid out for what he was.”

In a June 24 update, Hendrix posted that her family was doing great and that “life-changing events are at play.”