Last week a Marianna couple experienced something they never would have imagined in their home town.
Labor Day morning, Shiranda and Tory Brown were grabbing a bite to eat from the Marathon on Highway 71 in Marianna.
The couple says the morning turned ugly when a woman confronted Shiranda as she was getting her drink.
“That’s when the lady said, you know, move your effing chicken out the way before I sling this hot coffee on you,” Tory Brown said.
When Brown heard what was being said to his wife, he ran to her side to see what was going on.
“That’s when she dropped the n-word, monkey, for me to be back in cages, you know just about every racial sentence you can possibly think of she pretty much said it,” Brown said.
He explained that the woman, Darla Layton, then threw a cup of hot coffee on Shiranda and kicked him between the legs.
“she threw it, it hit me on the left side of my face,” said Shiranda Brown, hate crime victim. “Some of it got in my eye, it got in my hair, it got on my husband’s shoulder.”
Shiranda then decided to remove herself from the situation.
“She proceeded to follow me to my car while I’m trying to get the money to pay for our food, she’s steady with the racial slurs, threatening me,” said Shiranda Brown.
Eventually, Layton got in a car and left the store.
Brown said they never expected to experience something like this.
“A lot of this you see on tv, you see on social media but to actually have it happen to you in front of your face, it’s been mind-blowing,” Shiranda Brown said.
Officials with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office said surveillance video matches up with the Brown’s claims. The sheriff’s office is working to obtain a warrant for Layton’s arrest.
