MICHIGAN (AP) — A white woman who was charged after she was captured on video pulling a handgun on an unarmed Black woman and her daughters outside of a Michigan restaurant says she feared for her life.
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Jillian Wuestenberg, 32, and her husband, Eric Wuestenberg, 42, have been charged with felonious assault stemming from the July 1 confrontation.
Cellphone video captured the confrontation outside of a Chipotle restaurant in Orion Township, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of Detroit. Jillian Wuestenberg can be seen outside her vehicle shouting, “Get the (expletive) away! Get away!” while pointing a handgun. She eventually gets back into her vehicle, which her husband drives away.
Takelia Hill, who is Black, has said the confrontation started when Jillian Wuestenberg bumped into Hill’s teenage daughter as they were entering the restaurant.
Jillian Wuestenberg told Detroit television station WXYZ on Thursday that she was fearful when the Hill family members blocked her from getting into her vehicle and then banged on the back of it.
“Within moments, a second or two, I had multiple people within two feet of me and I just remember thinking I’m not going home tonight,” Wuestenberg said.
She was asked what she meant to do when the video shows her loading a round into the chamber of her handgun and pointing it at the Hill family.
“That meant I’m about to die and I don’t want to die,” Wuestenberg said.
Christopher Quinn, an attorney for Takelia Hill, declined to allow her to be interviewed Friday by The Associated Press because the court proceedings are pending.
Quinn said the cellphone video taken by Hill does not show that the Wuestenbergs’ lives were threatened by Hill and her daughters, who were unarmed.
“There was no threat of using a weapon or physical force against (the Wuestenbergs),” Quinn said. “They were in a position to leave the situation. They knew they had their firearms. They came out like Bonnie and Clyde and showed Ms. Hill and her daughters who were in charge.”
Dean Greenblatt, an attorney for the Wuestenbergs, said Friday that he believes Takelia Hill violated Michigan’s ethnic intimidation statute, which prohibits intimidation, harassment and violence based on a person’s race, gender and national origin.
Hill is heard in the video yelling profanities and threatening Jillian Wuestenberg, which included saying, “I will beat your white (expletive), too,” Greenblatt said. The Wuestenbergs also feared that their vehicle’s windows were going to be broken.
The video also shows that Hill “rushed up on Jillian Wuestenberg,” he said. “That would give reasonable cause to believe they would get their white (expletive) beat.”
She was 100% right doing what she did.
At this time in History only black lives matter.
She seems much to dangerous to be out and about in public with a gun. I hope she is able to get the help she needs in some sort of residential setting.
today’s media and public seems to favor the blacks over the whites, but I can understand that the white people were scared from the lawlessness recently shown by the blacks and their poor behavior.
Does everyone remember what happened on the NY subway, in December, 1984, when Bernhard Goetz was trying to defend himself from being beaten and robbed by three young hoodlums on the subway? He was forced to use his gun and shoot and wound all three. However, the corrupt news media labeled him as “the subway vigilante”, and tried to paint the three thugs as choir boys. All three of them had extensive criminal records. Goetz went to trial, and was acquitted on all of the serious charges, with the exception of carrying an unlicensed firearm. He received nearly one year in jail. He would not have received any jail time, if it wasn’t for the pressure by the media, and Sharpton. The news media, and the demonstrators wouldn’t have said boo, if Goetz had been assaulted and robbed, or if Goetz was Black, and the muggers were White.
In any hypothetical conflict between a Black and White people ,is it possible for the Black person to be the guilty patty or are Blacks always on the right and Whites always guilty or is it the reverse or just maybe can we view people as individuals
I wonder what Derek chauvin would have done if he was standing by .
Well, that part was left out in the original. I see now. They threatened her. They’re colored. They think all colored people kill. She was protecting herself.
Just glad she didn’t pull the trigger.
Dreadful situation. I’m sorry to hear this. The black family should be prosecuted and jailed.