McDonald's Attacker Gets 10 Years, Will Serve 5 For Transgender Hate Crime

Teonna Brown (L), Chrissy Polis (R)

Teonna Brown, who pleaded guilty last month to first-degree assault and a hate crime for beating a transgender woman at Maryland McDonald's, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison with 5 years suspended, along with three years of supervised probation. The crimes' maximum sentence is 35 years.

According to The Baltimore Sun:

In court, Brown asked for a second chance and apologized for the attack.

"My mother didn't raise me like this," Brown said before her lawyer asked the judge for probation only. "I would really like to apologize to the victim."

Assistant State's Attorney Rachel Cogen said Polis was too upset to come to court. In an emotional statement submitted to the court, Polis wrote that she did not forgive Brown and her 14-year-old companion for the attack. She described a demeaning attack in which Brown and the younger girl spat on her, called her names, kicked her and pulled out her hair.

"While being beaten, I felt like I was going to die that day," Polis wrote. After the beatings, her epileptic seizures, which had stopped for a year, started again and became more frequent, she added. She has suffered emotional damage as well, Polis wrote.

"My private life has been exposed to the world. I lost my job. I cannot go anywhere without the fear of getting hurt again," Polis wrote. "I want to go into a hole and hide."

The whole incident is unfortunate and demonstrates the lack of knowledge and understanding, and discrimination against transgender people," said Patrick Wojahn, board president of the Equality Maryland Foundation. "If anything, five years may have been too short of an amount of time for the attack and the amount of hatred that was shown in the incident."

First off, her apology comes off faker than a three dollar bill. If you're mother didn't raise you like that, then why did you repeatedly come back and attack someone who was clearly not trying to attack you? Why would you drag by her hair like an animal, spit and beat on her to the point she had a seizure? And more importantly, why did only one employee and an old woman attempt to stop this from happening? And only five years in jail? Unbelievable Watch a news report about the incident and you decide.