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Oregon Woman Faces Hate Crime Charges After Dumping Soda On Food Worker And Telling Her To ‘Go Back To Mexico’

Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office

A woman from Oregon is facing multiple hate crime charges after she allegedly poured soda over a food worker’s head, in addition to other assaults against the same food worker.

When Sierra McDonald, age 31, approached a Mexican food cart in Portland, she placed an order but then proceeded to refuse to pay for it, because she said the food was too highly-priced.

Enraged, McDonald took it to the next level by pouring the soda drink she had ordered over the food worker’s head, and the rest of it all over the woman’s work station, chicken, and grill, damaging food products and significantly slowing her work process.

McDonald is being charged with a bias crime, based on her interaction with the food worker, but she’s also facing assault charges for pouring soda all over the other woman’s head and work station.

After she returned home from the incident, McDonald received a phone call from the local police, but she hung up before they could complete their investigation into the incident.

Furious that the food worker had reported her, McDonald reappeared at the Mexican food cart in Portland later that same day.

During this visit, McDonald confronted the food worker she had interacted with earlier in the day, as well as another employee who had come on shift since then. She also threatened them with a wooden stick that had a sharply-pointed tip.

McDonald also spit all over the chicken on their work station and also attempted to throw chicken on the ground, which forced the employees to throw away twelve whole chickens that were potentially contaminated.

According to the report, McDonald later attempted to defend her behavior: 

“[The food cart workers were racist, because] they served white people faster than they served her.” 

To make matters worse, the woman McDonald assaulted twice that day reported shortly after that she had suffered a heart attack. She claimed that McDonald was to blame, due to all the stress and fear she had caused.

Much like their first phone call with McDonald, the police failed in their first attempt to arrest McDonald, because she refused to leave her home. She was then successfully taken into custody the following Sunday, but released to the public again on Monday.

McDonald now faces additional charges as the investigation progresses, including criminal mischief, menacing harassment, and the unlawful use of a weapon.

Twitter, of course, can’t imagine what she was thinking.

It’s a messy situation that certainly escalated beyond necessity.

McKenzie Lynn Tozan

Written by McKenzie Lynn Tozan

McKenzie Lynn Tozan lives in North Chicago, where she works as a poet, freelance writer, and editor. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Western Michigan University, and her BA in English from Indiana University South Bend. Her poems have appeared in Rogue Agent, Whale Road Review, the James Franco Review, Thank You for Swallowing, and elsewhere; and her essays and book reviews have appeared with Memoir Mixtapes, The Rumpus, BookPage, and Motherly, among others. When she's not reading and writing, she's in her garden or spending time with her family. For more, visit www.mckenzielynntozan.com.