A college student responded to a viral video in which a mother and daughter harassed her for attempting to park in a place they were “saving” in Queens.
Andreea Dumitru, 45, and her daughter Sabrina Starman, 21, are shown pounding on victim Jada McPherson on a Ridgewood street last Monday, yanking her hair, hurling racial comments, and unleashing a barrage of blows as she tries to defend herself.
“They were trying to literally rip my hair out of my scalp,” McPherson told The New York Post. The 21-year-old is a Pace University student who was renting in the neighborhood, where hoarding on-street spaces has locals fuming.
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According to police, the altercation began when McPherson, a Brooklyn native, attempted to park in a place guarded by Dumitru and Starman outside 18-28 Putnam Avenue. An unidentified man also joined the McPherson gang. McPherson had never met her attackers before the incident occurred.
“The guy, he ended up coming up behind me while I was trying to park and put a trash can to prevent me from parking,” McPherson said.
After failing to locate another parking space on the block, McPherson returned to inform the family that they couldn’t guard parking spaces. That’s when the man “went ballistic” and the mother-daughter duo hurled racist slurs at McPherson, who is black.
The man fled the scene before the cops could get there.
“You’re a monkey, b***h,” Dumitru shouts in the video, and McPherson responds, “You’re an immigrant, b***h.”
Starman then shouts, “You are an f-king slave, b***h. You’re a slave for what it’s worth,” before lunging at her, and the fight ensues.
McPherson also said that the three of them pulled her hair so hard that they tore a piece off her head. According to her, the only one who came to her aid was 42-year-old housekeeper Adis Kurbegovic, while everyone else casually recorded the assault.
“He was the only one that helped. He gave me water and everything after the situation,” McPherson recalled. “All these neighbors that are inside right now were outside recording … They watched the whole fight go down, basically.”
Police reported that Starman and Dumitru were arrested and charged with first-degree assault and second-degree harassment. However, Starman and Dumitru intend to contest the charges in court in September after hiring an attorney.
“You can’t claim to be a victim if you instigate an altercation with threatening behavior and vile and hurtful language,” said Mahmoud Rabah, an attorney for the pair.
According to Rabah, since the video was uploaded, the mother and daughter have received death threats.
After the unfortunate incident, which McPherson said made her “fear for my life,” the student has announced that she will be leaving her Ridgewood apartment permanently. She told The Post that when the gruesome video of her attack went viral, her leasing company offered to move her.
After the altercation, McPherson refused medical help but stated she now intends to go to a hospital.
Meanwhile, the mom and daughter duo apologized to her after the viral fight, but McPherson doesn’t want to hear it.
She told The Post, “I don’t accept the apology only because I feel like the apologies are only because of how much outreach the video is getting and I don’t think the apology is wholesome.”