The woman who viciously, violently, and repeatedly beat a transgender woman into a seizure at a Baltimore McDonald’s in April has received only a five-year sentence for a crime so heinous the video went viral. Teonna Monae Brown, 18, was caught on tape, along with a minor, kicking, beating, and dragging by her hair Chrissy Lee Polis, while McDonald’s employees watched, filmed the attack with a cell phone camera, and did little to stop the assault, which was so violent Polis, after being dragged from the back of the restaurant to the front door, suffered a dramatic seizure. The attack lasted a total of at least three minutes, during which time Brown and the minor left but returned to beat Polis again.
Note: Our original story, along with video of the violent assault, and the graphic images can be seen here, but we caution they are intense and not suitable for some viewers.Â
Teonna Monae Brown was sentence to five years, of a possible maximum 35-year sentence. Polis, 22, days later called the attack “a hate crime.” It took the Baltimore District Attorney’s office one month to decide to prosecute the assault as a hate crime.
The Baltimore Sun today reports “Brown, who tearfully apologized in court Tuesday, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with five years suspended, plus three years of supervised probation, as prosecutors sought. The maximum sentence for the crimes is 35 years.”
Baltimore County Circuit Judge John Grason Turnbull II called Brown’s attack on Polis “absolutely outrageous behavior” and said the prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation was “more than reasonable.”
After the sentencing, Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger said that “it was very important that even though this defendant has no criminal record, that she receive substantial time in jail.” He said the violence of the repeated assaults warranted it.
“‘This is the harshest penalty I have ever seen handed down to an 18-year-old first-time offender in a case of assault’,” Timothy Knepp, Brown’s lawyer, said later, according to The Sun. “He called the case ‘a tragic set of circumstances that was really overblown by the state’s attorney’s office’.”
Apparently, the court was not told that Brown was arrested last year for assault in the exact same McDonald’s.
“No punishment can undo what happened to Chrissy Lee Polis, or make the trauma that the transgender community experienced from witnessing her attack go away,” Michael Silverman, executive director of the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, told The New Civil Rights Movement. “This sentence reminds us that hate-motivated violence is still a part of everyday life for transgender people. We hope that the sentence provides a measure of justice and peace to Chrissy and her family and friends, and that it sends a message that attacks on transgender people will not be tolerated.”
The Sun adds,
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.”
Polis wrote that she has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and suffers from sleep problems, anguish, fear of being alone, bouts of crying and anxiety. She has been admitted twice to a crisis center.
Vicky Thoms, 55, a bystander who was punched in the face when she tried to intervene in the beating, attended the sentencing. Afterward, she said she did not know if justice was served, but hoped that Brown and others would take away a message about the world needing more love and less violence.
She has also had difficulty coping with the experience. “It’s hard to go outside,” she said. “I never dreamed that I would see anything like that in my life.”
Exactly one week before the hate crime beating, the Maryland Senate effectively killed the Gender Identity Non-​Discrimination Bill, also known as HB 235, which would have protected transgender people in housing, banking, and employment. While the bill would have had no direct impact on this incident, the Maryland Senate sent Maryland citizens a strong message by killing the bill.
This case brought national attention to the tremendous rate of violence perpetrated upon transgender citizens. Sadly, that attention has not reduced the violence. Washington, D.C. based MetroWeekly Tuesday published an extensive report, including a list of attacks, shootings, and murders of transgender people in the Washington, D.C. area, totaling at least a dozen over just the past few months.