Woman Sentenced In Racist Attack Of Mother, Baby At Dollar Tree

SANTA ROSA, CA — A woman was sentenced Tuesday to probation and jail time for a 2017 assault on a woman, her son and a store clerk in a Roseland neighborhood store in Santa Rosa in August 2017.

Marion Christine Forrest, 53, became angry Aug. 25, 2017, when the mother's 2-year-old son would not stop crying in the Dollar Tree store after a bee stung him, Sonoma County prosecutors said.

Forrest and her sister were in the checkout line in the store at 777 Sebastopol Road when they began shouting across the store about the "Mexican baby" who needed to "shut up," prosecutors said in a news release.

Forrest cursed the mother when she defended her son, repeatedly struck her and her son and the store clerk who intervened, according to prosecutors.

Forrest's sister, Frankie Jean Brouwer, 48, of Santa Rosa, also assaulted the mother and her 13-year-old daughter, and Forrest made racially charged statements, according to the district attorney's Office.

Prosecutors said when Sonoma County sheriff's deputies detained her, Forrest accused them of refusing to interview white witnesses and told the deputies not to listen to the witnesses they talked to because they are not white.

The battery and racist comments were recorded on a surveillance system, and Forrest agreed to plead no contest to battery, child abuse and admitted a hate crime allegation, the district attorney's office said.

She was sentenced Tuesday to 48 months of probation and 120 days in the Sonoma County Jail. She also was ordered to participate in anger replacement therapy, stay away from the victims of the attack and is prohibited from owning or possessing a firearm for 10 years, according to
prosecutors.

Brouwer was convicted of misdemeanor battery and was sentenced last week.

• Sonoma Co. Woman Arrested In Dollar Tree 'Melee,' Possible Hate Crime: Sheriff

By Bay City News Service

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