19-year-old Teonna Monae Brown received her sentencing today, after pleading guilty to first-degree assault and a hate crime. In April of this year, Brown was caught on video beating and kicking 22-year-old Chrissy Lee Polis in a Baltimore McDonalds. The video, recorded by an employees of McDonalds who was filming instead of trying to stop the attack, shows Polis being kicked and struck in the head, then dragged by the hair across the floor.
Brown apologized in court this week, and then was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with five years suspended, plus three years of supervised probation, as prosecutors sought. The maximum sentence for these types of crimes is 35 years. Judge John Grason Turnbull II called the attack “absolutely outrageous behavior” and said the prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation was “more than reasonable.”
Vincent Paolo Villano, from the National Center for Transgender Equality, said that he hopes that “people use this as an opportunity to educate other people.” The point, he said, is that “everyone is treated fairly and equally.”