Two women casually conversing in a supermarket in Rifle, Colo., get rudely interrupted by a woman growing increasingly irate and aggressive. Their offense: Living while Latina and speaking in Spanish in front of a white woman.
Linda Dwire, a 64-year-old woman who thinks she’s an officer of the language police, approached Fabiola Velasquez, age 30, and Isabel Nava Marin at City Market and asked them if they liked living in the United States, and, if so, they “had to speak English.”
This story, however, ends with Dwire in handcuffs, and another woman defending the Latinas.
Dwire, who became irate at the Latinas, was interrupted by Kamira Trent, a 30-year-old bystander who was concerned about the safety of Velasquez and Marin.
Velasquez said of Trent: “She defended us and called the police.”
Trent said to Dwire: “I’m calling the cops. You leave these women alone! Get out!”
Dwire accuses Trent of being a part of a generation destroying this country, and shoved a finger in her face saying, “You will lose your country. You know what, you will lose this country.”
Dwire reportedly got close enough to Trent to actually touch her, and Trent swiped Dwire’s hand off her before calling the police.
Trent also shouted back to Dwire in defense of the women: “You do not harass Hispanic women!”
Dwire continued to feel entitled in her policing of Spanish speakers when the authorities arrived saying she was exercising her free speech, and was offended with the women speaking Spanish because they “didn’t have the respect to speak English.”
She claims she was being “patriotic,” not racist.
“They’d rather have their country here,” she said. “I don’t mind them coming here as long as they want to be an American and not go on our welfare system. When there are so many people that don’t learn English, that’s what divides our country.”
When officer Carlos Cornejo’s requests to stop were ignored, and Dwire tried to walk away, she was handcuffed and taken to Garfield County Jail. Dwire was charged with two counts of bias-motivated harassment, according to the Rifle Police Department. She was released on bond and is due back in court in November.
The report by Cornejo stated that Marin reported Dwire “was being very aggressive and she was afraid she was going to hurt her.”
Velasquez had two young children with her, and both women were crying.
She wrote on Facebook, “I never thought this would happen to me.”
Velasquez told BuzzFeed, “If she wasn’t racist, she wouldn’t care what language we would speak. It baffles me because, I don’t understand, what concept they have about us [immigrants]. What are we trying to take away from them exactly”
Her viral video of the exchange between Dwire and Trent has garnered thousands of comments in support of Trent and the two Latina friends.
