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A New Hampshire woman is accused of threatening to kneel on a Black child's neck, after the boy accidentally broke her son's toy, and calling him a racial slur, the New Hampshire attorney general's office said Thursday.
A civil rights complaint was filed against Kristina Graper, and the complaint filed in Strafford County Superior Court alleges that she threatened the 9-year-old boy who was playing with her son in a neighborhood park on May 10, the Associated Press reported.
Graper's alleged threat to the boy that she would "kneel on his neck" was in reference to George Floyd's death last year, Attorney General John Formella said in the complaint.
"[The boy's] race motivated the defendant's threat," Formella wrote. "The very nature of the defendant's threat invoked [the boy's] race as the threat was a reference to the widely-publicized murder of George Floyd. The defendant's use of racial slurs directed at [the boy] further evidenced the racial motivation for the defendant's threat."
For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below.
Graper's son pushed the boy, and that push resulted in the boy "breaking a foam missile or foam bullet" that belonged to Graper's son. Her son ran home to tell her what happened.
Graper then went back to the park and found the other child, threatening him that she would "kneel on his neck," according to the complaint. A witness told Graper that her behavior was unnecessary, and then Graper started yelling at that person. She called the child a racial slur before returning home, the complaint said.
Graper's race was not mentioned in the complaint.
The child's mother later called police. When she met with them on June 1, Graper denied saying she would kneel on the boy's neck, but instead said words to the effect of, "you wonder why you guys get [expletive] kneeled on," according to the complaint.
The complaint said the encounter distressed the child, who understood the comments to be a reference to the murder of Floyd last year. He began to cry when he heard her words and has been afraid to return to the park, and will only do so "when other children are there to help keep him safe," the complaint said.
Last year, millions of people watched the footage of Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, pleading for air as a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck until he stopped breathing. Former Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted in April on charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd's death.
AP left phone and email messages for Graper. Messages also were left at possible social media contacts for her. There was no lawyer listed for her in the case file.
