LAGUNA WOODS, Calif. — A woman wearing a Nazi armband in public threatened an elderly Jewish man who confronted her, according to police in Southern California who are seeking to have the woman charged with a hate crime.
Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesperson Jaimee Blashaw said Friday that deputies investigated the March 7 incident in Laguna Woods in which a man in his 80s said he confronted the woman wearing a red armband with a swastika.
Blashaw said the woman made anti-Semitic comments and threatened the man. She said two witnesses intervened and one took the armband from the woman.
Blashaw said authorities asked the district attorney's office to charge the woman with criminal threats with a hate enhancement. She declined to name the woman as she has not been arrested.
A message was left with the district attorney's office. The Anti-Defamation League denounced the incident as an “outrageous act of Jew hatred."
Laguna Woods was built as a senior living community and later became a city. More than 80% of residents in the city of 18,000 people about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles are at least 65.
