Left: Footage recorded at the crime scene of Jasmine Adams being kicked after being dragged out of a deli in New York City after a cashier mistook her for being transgender. Right: Jasmine Adams is dragged by her hair by an employee at a Staten Island deli. Footage provided by Robert Brown, Esq.
Without any arrests yet made by Staten Island Police, a woman who was caught on video being dragged by her hair into the street and kicked in the head by a cashier who she says mistook her for being transgender, has filed a lawsuit against the owners of the deli where the assault took place.
“Even if I was a transvestite, what does that have to do with anything?” Jasmine Adams told the New York Daily News in an interview Tuesday, quoting what she says the deli worker called her in the shocking episode that occurred on July 28.
Adams, 35, has sued the West Brighton Deli & Grill. The lawsuit, obtained by Law&Crime, specifically names the deli’s owner, the West Bright Deli Grocery Corporation.
Adams alleges the employee grew upset with her while she was at the register preparing to purchase marijuana, which is legal in New York. Adams, who does not smoke, said she was on her phone with a friend who had asked her to pick it up for her. The marijuana cost $40, Adams said, and she was discussing with her friend whether this was in fact what they wanted and the employee took this as an insult, presuming she was trying to negotiate the price.
She told the Daily News the man “sucked his teeth and got mad” before he threw the packet of marijuana on the ground. Adams refused to pick it up and she claims he started yelling at her about how she was trying to get him fired and he was going to call the police. Adams said she told the man she just wanted her money back and that’s when he heard him call her a transvestite.
Adams, who is bisexual, said before she knew it, the cashier had maced her while she was still inside the store. She said she had attempted to defend herself by swinging at him with a coffee pot grabbed off a counter. But by then, he had grabbed her by hair and started dragging her out of the corner store.
Local New York affiliate WPIX reported that the accused worker has been fired since the alleged assault but the owners of the deli have not helped police identity him. The Staten Island Police Department did not immediately return a request for comment to Law&Crime on Tuesday.
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In an statement to Law&Crime, Adams’ attorney Robert Brown said he still was not sure why after so many months the alleged perpetrator has never been arrested.
Video footage of the assault obtained by Law&Crime shows the man pulled Adams along the concrete sidewalk and cursed at her as a small group of people were gathered nearby, audibly voicing their shock at what they were witnessing.
“You didn’t have to do all that,” a person can be heard saying in the footage.
Adams said after the man kicked her in the head and walked away, she realized she would need to leave the area immediately.
“I said to myself that I gotta get outta here because I don’t know if he’s going to kill me,” she told the Daily News on Monday.
The 9-page lawsuit filed on Oct. 5 by her attorney Robert Brown in the Staten Island Supreme Court alleges negligence, assault, battery and discrimination, highlighting that the cashier only called her a “transvestite” after observing her rainbow-themed wristband. The nature of Adams’ injuries were not detailed in the complaint though she describes them as “severe.” She has also sued for intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Watch the video of the attack, below.
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