Holly MatkinAlbuquerque, NM – An “award-winning journalist” who champions for the rights of Native Americans launched into an expletive-filled tirade after liquor store employees refused to sell her a bottle of wine (video below).
The incident occurred on April 5, after Jenni Monette – who goes by the name of Jenni Monet – drove to a Santa Fe liquor store on Old Pecos Trail to purchase two bottles of wine, KRQE reported.
The employees said that Monette appeared to be intoxicated, so they refused to sell her the alcohol.
But Monette alleged that the staff “racially profiled” her, and that they refused her service because she is “a brown woman.”
After being told that she would not be allowed to make the purchase, Monette went back out to her vehicle.
A moment later, she stormed back inside the store, and began screaming at the staff.
Surveillance footage from the store showed her lashing out and making obscene gestures at the employees, who then called the police.
Monette marched back out to her car, where she also placed a call to law enforcement.
A Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputy responded to the scene, and made contact with Monette as she was sitting in the driver’s seat of her vehicle with the door open, bodycam footage showed.
At one point during their conversation, the deputy asked Monette if she had been drinking.
“No,” she replied.
“Okay,” he said. “How come I can smell a really strong odor of alcohol?”
“I don’t know,” Monette insisted. “I’ve not been drinking.”
The deputy asked the journalist what the liquor store employees had done that led her to believe she had been racially profiled.
“Because I’m a brown woman,” Monet said, gesturing to her face. “Do you not see that?”
The deputy eventually asked Monette to perform field sobriety tests, at which point she grew irate.
“I’m not walking any f–king line for you! You hear me?” she screamed at him. “I am not walking any f–king line for you!”
The deputy and additional officers then placed her under arrest.
“Police brutality! Police brutality!” Monette yelled repeatedly.
She called one officer a “fat-fingered f—k,” and her tirade continued as she was placed into the back of a patrol car.
“You f–king racist mother–ker!” Monette screamed. “You f–king white supremacist!”
She was hauled off to the Santa Fed County jail on charges of resisting, evading, or obstructing an officer, and aggravated driving while intoxicated, according to jail records.
She was released from custody less than 48 hours later, but not in time for her to make her scheduled appearance at an event held at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC) that weekend, Indianz.com reported.
“Unfortunately, Jenni Monet is unable to visit MIAC on 4/7 due to a personal emergency,” the MIAC said in a Facebook post announcing the cancellation of the event.
During an interview with KRQE on April 11, Monette alleged that she was racially profiled by the deputies who arrested her.
“I’m an award-winning journalist and…I said that to these officers, and they didn’t even run an ID check on me or check my name, or even validate the fact that I had called them for help,” she told the news outlet.
“I am one of a majority of people who are victimized by this kind of racial profiling that exists on a daily basis,” she continued. “”Neither was I drinking or driving at the time, and we’re confident that the evidence that stands in my favor will vindicate me.”
She allegedly threatened to sue KRQE for airing her story, according to the news outlet.
“I’m an award-winning journalist,” she said in an audio recording with KRQE. “You can look me up. Jenni Monet. Go ahead.”
You can watch bodycam footage of Monette’s interaction with the deputies in the video below: