A white couple in Michigan are facing charges after one of them pulled a gun on a black woman and her children in a Chipotle parking lot.
Jillian Wuestenberg, 32, and Eric Wuestenberg, 42, were arrested after Wednesday night’s confrontation and charged Thursday with felonious assault. They were later arraigned and are free on a $50,000 bond, as well as turning over all of their firearms, agreeing to not engage in “assaultive behavior,” and not leave the state.
Cellphone video captured the confrontation outside a restaurant 40 miles outside of Detroit. Takelia Hill, who is black, said that it happened after the white woman bumped into Hill’s teenage daughter as they were entering the fast food restaurant.
The sheriff’s office said that both parties called the police on each other and that the Wuestenbergs “claimed to fear for their lives over threatening comments made to them and their vehicle being struck with a hand by the other party.”
“There’s a lot of tension in our society, a lot of tension among folks and people with each other,” Bouchard, the sheriff, said. “I would just say this, we are asking and expect our police — and rightfully so — to deescalate every situation they possibly can, and we should be doing that. But I would say that needs to happen with us individually in our own lives and situations, that we interact with each other and deescalate those moments.”
After the video surfaced, Eric Wuestenberg has been fired from his job at Oakland University. He worked as a veterans support services coordinator, according to a university website.
Democratic U.S. Rep Elissa Slotkin said that he had also participated in one of her veterans advisory boards, where she had him removed.
Story at ABC News.
