An Oregon woman who was convicted of a hate crime in 2018 for using racial slurs and threatening an African American couple with a knife was arrested again last week after an altercation with a neighbor in which she allegedly yelled “go back to Mexico.”

Amber Rocco is accused of spraying her neighbor, Barbara Helderman-Kinney, with mace, KATU reported. Helderman-Kinney said she was shoveling snow in front of her home in the small town of Idanha, 50 miles east of Salem, when Rocco started yelling at her.

"I just kept digging and I don’t remember what I said, and I just kept digging, and she held it out (the mace),” Helderman-Kinney told KATU. ”I looked at her and said, ‘Just do it.’ And she did it. It was premeditated, because she had the mace in her hand already, when she got out of the truck.”

Helderman-Kinney also told KATU that Rocco yelled “go back to Mexico.”

In 2018, Rocco was arrested for calling an African American couple a slur, spitting on the chest of one of them and brandishing a knife in front of both during an altercation in McMinnville that was caught on video. She later pleaded guilty to second-degree intimidation, unlawful use of a weapon and two counts of harassment. She was sentenced to 30 days in jail and later apologized for the incident.

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Rocco told KATU that the most recent allegations against her were false

-- Kale Williams

kwilliams@oregonian.com

503-294-4048

@sfkale

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