A 31-year-old Lincoln Heights woman is facing assault and ethnic intimidation charges after she allegedly struck a store owner and screamed a racial death threat inside a Reading, Ohio grocery store this week. Shannon Brewster was booked into Hamilton County custody on Friday on charges including aggravated menacing, simple assault, ethnic intimidation, improper backing, and stopping after an accident on non-public roads, according to Hamilton County public booking records cited on Facebook.
The alleged attack happened inside Don Vonderhaar's Market on W. Pleasant Street near Reading Road, according to Local 12. Brewster allegedly used profane language toward the store owner, and when he asked her to watch her language, court documents say she continued yelling and behaving disorderly. She then allegedly struck the owner in the neck and slapped at his hand before leaving the store, per the affidavit cited by the station.
As she left, Brewster allegedly shouted, “I'll kill all you white motherf-----s,” according to the Local 12 report, and she is accused of threatening to kill people inside the store. The booking records also list improper backing and stopping after an accident on non-public roads among her charges, suggesting the confrontation may have extended into a vehicle incident near the store, though the exact circumstances of that portion of the case have not been detailed publicly.
How Ohio's Ethnic Intimidation Law Works
Ohio does not have a standalone hate crime statute. Instead, under Section 2927.12 of the Ohio Revised Code, ethnic intimidation functions as a penalty enhancement that bumps an underlying misdemeanor, such as aggravated menacing, up to the next higher degree of offense when it is committed because of race, color, religion, or national origin. That means prosecutors have to prove both the underlying criminal act and that it was motivated by bias.
The predicate charges Brewster faces carry their own penalties. Aggravated menacing under Ohio Revised Code § 2903.21 is a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine, according to a legal analysis from The Botnick Law Firm. Simple assault under Section 2903.13 carries the same maximum penalty range, per an analysis from Smith Law.
A separate legal review from the Ohio Hospital Association/LHA notes that the state's ethnic intimidation statute is comparatively narrow, since it only attaches to specified misdemeanor predicate offenses and does not reach standalone violent felonies. That structural gap means prosecutors handling more serious bias-motivated violence in Ohio must lean on discretionary sentencing factors rather than a dedicated felony hate crime charge.
A Grocery Store Rooted in the Neighborhood
Don Vonderhaar's Market has been a fixture in Reading since 1969, when founder Don Vonderhaar Sr. purchased the neighborhood grocery store where he had originally worked as a bagger. Over more than five decades, the market grew into a local catering and convenience staple, according to background from the store itself.
Reading, where the market sits, is a Hamilton County suburb north of Cincinnati with a population of roughly 10,500 residents that is 77.2% White and 9.3% Black, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Brewster's hometown of Lincoln Heights, an adjacent village of about 3,150 residents, holds a distinct place in the region's history: it incorporated in 1946 as the first majority African-American self-governing municipality north of the Mason-Dixon line, according to reporting from TIME.
Part of a Broader Statewide Pattern
The case adds to a running statewide conversation about how Ohio tracks and prosecutes bias-motivated crime. Law enforcement agencies across the state reported 459 total hate crime incidents in 2023, with race, ethnicity, or ancestry bias accounting for 221 of those cases, according to data compiled by the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI.
Local outlet WKRC reported in March that nearly 12,000 hate crimes were reported to the FBI nationwide between 2020 and 2024, a trend that has fueled ongoing legislative proposals in Ohio to expand the state's hate crime protections and close gaps in the current statutory framework. No trial date or additional charging details for Brewster have been released.
