A homeless woman with a troubled history in Portland — including felony convictions for arson and rioting during the city’s 2017 May Day demonstrations — was arrested Monday on suspicion of committing a hate crime.

Sarah Pugh, 38, is accused of shoving and shouting racial slurs at another person during an early morning altercation near Southwest Oak Street and Third Avenue, said Lt. Tina Jones, a Portland Police Bureau spokeswoman. Police provided no further details about the incident.

Authorities booked Pugh into the Multnomah County jail on charges of second-degree intimidation, a felony hate crime in Oregon, and harassment, records show. She’s also accused of violating the probation order tied to her 2017 convictions.

Court and police records cast Pugh as someone who has struggled with addiction and substance abuse for several years.

Pugh left her two children with family in Indiana, where she was born and raised, to travel the country, racking up arrests for assault, disorderly conduct and drug-related charges in Arizona, Californian and Tennessee, records show.

She arrived in Portland in 2016 and took up residence on the streets, occasionally earning money by cleaning the dumpster of a city restaurant, according to court documents.

Portland police have cited Pugh for public intoxication a dozen times since September 2016. She’s also been arrested on suspicion of assault, disorderly conduct, interfering with a peace officer and criminal mischief, court records show.

Pugh told police she decided to join the May 1, 2017, demonstrations after she saw a large group of protesters who converged on downtown, according to a probable cause affidavit.

As police and protesters clashed, she set a pile of newspaper ablaze in Southwest Morrison Street and Park Avenue. She was later captured on video holding a burning flare next to a growing bonfire at Morrison and Southwest Fourth Avenue.

After authorities extinguished the second fire, Pugh mooned police then urinated on the street, court records said.

“It was my first time at an anarchist riot,” Pugh later told police, court records show.

A warrant for Pugh’s suspected probation violation was issued in February 2018. She’s scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday on the new charges.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh; 503-294-7632

Email at skavanaugh@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @shanedkavanaugh

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