An angry woman with an ill-fitting hat went viral last month after a video showed her racist rant in Torrance, California. Another video of a separate incident featuring the same woman surfaced less than a week later, and she has since been labeled 'Staircase Karen' by the internet. TMZ reports that the woman, 56-year-old Lena Hernandez, has been arrested for misdemeanor battery following a warrant issued for her arrest.
Law enforcement sources close to the situation revealed that a warrant for her arrest was issued on Friday, and she was later arrested the same day. The charges are connected to a public restroom incident in Oct. 2019, in which she reportedly physically attacked someone. It is unclear if the incident is the same one Twitter user Kayceelyn Salminao reported around the same time the videos of Lena Hernandez started to circulate online, as she claimed the attack happened in Oct. 2019.
The arrest was made after the clips shed light on Hernandez's behavior. The first of the clips saw her wish violence on a woman for simply using the stairs. "Next time you talk to me like that, you're gonna get your ass kicked by my family," the disturbed woman said in the clip. "Go back to whatever fucking Asian country you belong in, you little fucking bitch."
The second video showed her being confronted after she allegedly made a "racist comment" toward a man and his 11-year-old son. "You need to go home," she said in the video. "You play games. We don't play games. I play games where you get fucked to death." She also threatened to call the police, later calling the person filming her "Chinaman."
The Torrance Police Department has since arrested her in the city of San Pedro, but she is expected to bail out soon.
