Heather Lynn Patton is a California woman caught on video unleashing a racist rant targeting a black woman at a CVS Pharmacy in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles on September 24. She can be heard using the n-word several times and saying she wants to kill black people,
The video begins with the woman, identified as Patton, jumping up and down at the entrance of the CVS and yelling, “I hate n*ggers.” When the woman filming says Patton “is on drugs or something,” Patton replies, “no I just hate n*ggers.”
Adrene Ashford, who filmed the video, told Heavy the incident began with Patton screaming at her and verbally assaulting her inside the CVS store unprovoked. She began recording because she wanted police to be able to see what had happened, Ashford told Heavy.
“I would like to take a stand and share my story,” Ashford said in an interview with Heavy on September 26, two days after the incident. “I was in there shopping and she started screaming and yelling at me in the store. I ran to the front and begged them to call police, and said ‘she keeps calling me n*gger.'”
Ashford said she went to the Los Angeles Police Department and filed a report. An officer told her she would hear back in about five days. The LAPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Heavy. But the LAPD told the Los Angeles Times and KTLA-TV that a hate crime investigation is underway.
Patton is a 49-year-old Los Angeles resident who works in the TV and movie industry as a costume designer, wardrobe assistant, costumer and in various other film crew roles.
Ashford coincidentally also works in the film industry in costume design. “I could end up on set with her,” she told Heavy. “I’m scared, this is my livelihood as well. I don’t know this woman from a can of paint, but I learned she is in the film and TV industry and that she has done this to others. It’s very scary.”
Two other women with the same name also living in California have been misidentified on social media as the woman in the video. Heavy has confirmed that neither woman is the woman in the video. One is a doctor in San Diego and another works in the art industry in Los Angeles.
Patton did not respond to a request for comment from Heavy. An Instagram account that surfaced in her name, heatherlynnpatton, on September 26 and posted an apology, appears to be a fake. The profile photo uses a picture taken from the Facebook of a different Heather Patton.
Here’s what you need to know about Heather Lynn Patton:
1. Heather Patton Yells in the Video, ‘I Would Kill a N*gger but the Law Says I Can’t Kill the N*ggers’
The incident occurred the afternoon of Tuesday, September 24, 2019, and the video went viral on September 25, 2019, after it was posted on Facebook and then shared by several influential social media personalities that same day, with many asking for help identifying the woman in the video. Heather Patton’s neighbors identified her as the woman in the video and Heavy confirmed her identity through public records.
In the video, which you can watch above, Patton is seen in the entrance of the CVS Pharmacy on Colorado Boulevard in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, according to witnesses. She is jumping up and down and yelling, “I hate n*ggers,” as the woman who recorded it begins filming. Patton then walks out into the parking lot as the woman on the receiving end of the abuse, Adrene Ashford, continues to record.
Patton can be heard saying, “f*ck you n*ggers,” as a man walks by and tells her, “come on lady, take a break.” Patton then yells again, “I hate n*ggers.”
As the woman filming tells her they are calling the police, Patton yells, “I would kill a n*gger but the law says I can’t kill the n*ggers. If the law didn’t say I couldn’t kill the n*ggers they’d all be dead!”
Patton then walks to her car and points out her license plate number on her Honda Element SUV to the woman who is filming and then chants n*gger six times before getting into her car as the video ends.
Ashford also left the store, without getting the prescription she had gone to get in the first place, she told Heavy. “I live 10 minutes from there, I’m very shocked, appalled by the whole matter. I’m taking a stand,” Ashford said.
Another video shows the incident from a different angle.
In the second video, Patton can be heard saying, “I’m not running from you n*ggers. A witness said Patton was also shouting about lynching black people.
2. Ashford Says ‘I Don’t Feel Safe,’ & ‘I Want It to Be Known That This Is a Hate Crime & This Type of Behavior Isn’t OK’
Heather Lynn Patton.
Adrene Ashford, who recorded the video, told Heavy she wanted to share her story.
“I don’t feel safe. I have a prescription at CVS and I don’t feel safe,” going back there, Ashford said. She said Patton lives near her and that also makes her uncomfortable.
“I haven’t been able to sleep,” Ashford said. “(She was) following me around, yelling at me, shouting what she wants to do to black people. That’s against the law. That’s a hate crime. I want it to be known that this is a hate crime and this type of behavior isn’t OK. She is not a safe person to have out here in the community.”
“I have to be verbal, I have to take a stand, because so many of us don’t speak up. I’ve got to stand up for myself and fight and be a voice and say what happened. She was in the store verbally assaulting me,” Ashford told Heavy.
Ashford said she sent the video to her sister and a friend, telling them that the woman in it had threatened to kill her and black people and she wanted them to have it just in case. It was later posted on social media by her sister.
Renee Saldana, a Los Angeles woman who was at the CVS, wrote on Twitter, “This happened yesterday afternoon. I was also there and got video of this woman’s racist rant at CVS in Eagle Rock.”
Saldana added that she reported the incident.
When asked if there was any buildup or altercation before the outburst in the door of CVS, Saldana tweeted, “No, not as far as I could tell. It was quiet in CVS & then someone just yelled the n-word and then it was quiet again & then that woman started screeching racist stuff towards a Black woman (who shot that video). There was no build-up or prior altercation.”
She added, “There were at least a dozen witnesses and there was more yelling going on inside before the video starts. That woman was freaking out everyone in the store shouting about lynching Black people. There were 2 shoppers who saw her drive up & said she was driving erratically when she parked. When the woman took off after the rant, she was speeding west on Colorado driving on the wrong side of the street. Other frightened customers kept saying, ‘She could kill someone!'”
In the video, a woman can be heard making what appears to be a 911 call and telling the dispatcher that Patton, “drove into the parking lot like a crazy person.”
Ashford said she didn’t feel like the CVS employees, including a manager and cashier, who witnessed the incident did enough. Ashford asked them to call 911, but they didn’t. She said she went back to the store the night of the incident and expressed her frustration. She was given information for the store’s corporate office and said she plans to reach out. CVS hasn’t commented about the incident.
3. Patton Has Had 2 Restraining Orders Taken Against Her by Her Neighbors & a News Site Reports She Had a Similar Incident at a Grocery Store
Heather Patton.
Heather Patton has been issued two restraining orders filed by her neighbors in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles, according to Los Angeles County court records.
Both of the restraining orders were issued in April 2017. Details of the incidents and alleged harassment that led up to the orders being granted were not immediately available.
According to L.A. Taco, a source told the news site that Patton was involved in a similar incident at Gelson’s Market in La Cañada Flintridge. She was banned from the grocery store after verbally assaulting a cashier of Asian descent.
“She got up to the counter and started calling the cashier names, told him to get out of the country. The manager came back up and told her he’d call the police if she didn’t leave…screamed all the way to her car in the parking lot,” the source told L.A. Taco.
Patton does not appear to have a criminal record.
Her neighbor told KTLA-TV that Patton, “has a long history of erratic, unstable behavior and making violent threats to him and his family.”
The neighbor, Tony, told KTLA, “We had to file restraining orders against her and her husband.” He said they would, “threaten us, to assault us. They were yelling racial slurs.” He said they are Italian and the couple would tell them to go back to their country. His wife said on social media that Patton’s husband has made slurs against Hispanics.
The neighbor told KTLA that he installed security cameras after incidents with her. He showed the news station video of Patton threatening to slit someone’s throat. Another video shows her and a man in a physical struggle and arguing in the street. The neighbor also accused Patton of vandalizing his father’s truck.
Ashford told Heavy learning about the restraining orders made her feel more unsafe. “This lady lives in my neighborhood, has done this to her own neighbors,” Ashford said. “I can’t even go to the CVS down the street from my house.”
4. She Has Worked on Several TV Shows, Including ‘Rescue Me,’ ‘The Americans,’ ‘Private Practice’ & ‘Medium’
Heather Patton.
Heather Patton has worked in the TV and movie industry for several years in costuming and in other crew roles, according to her IMDB page and her resume.
Patton has worked on several TV shows and movies. She was a costume designer for two short movies in 2005 and 2013.
She also worked as a wardrobe assistant on “Winter Solstice,” “Walk This Way,” “Epic Movie” and as a set costumer on “Paterson.”
Patton was a costumer for “Private Practice,” “Medium,” “Rescue Me” and a set costumer on “The Americans.”
Ashford, who also works in costume design in Hollywood, told Heavy she plans to seek her own restraining order because of the coincidence of them being in the same industry. She also said she will be contacting her union.
5. Patton Attended Virginia Commonwealth University & Is Married
Heather Patton was born in Iowa and graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a bachelor’s of fine arts degree, according to her Linkedin profile. She says on Linkedin that she has worked in the theater industry as a wardrobe supervisor and dresser since 1996 and as a costumer and costume designer in the film industry since 2001.
She has also lived in Brooklyn, New York.
Patton, who has also volunteered at the Museum of Contemporary Art-Los Angeles, The Midnight Mission and the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Lloyd Andrew Sigler, according to public records.
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