A Maryland woman has been arrested and may face hate crime charges following an incident captured in a viral video from the 2025 holiday season.
According to a January 12 police report, an unnamed man was attacked by 34-year-old Shibritney Colbert while shopping at the Giant grocery store in Alexandria, Virginia, on Christmas Day afternoon. Cell phone footage of the incident, which the man posted on social media, shows Colbert pushing the victim, hitting him with a grocery cart, and throwing groceries at him while making derogatory comments about his sexuality.
Related posts
“Just got hate crimes in the grocery store for being gay, merry Christmas,” the man wrote to social media when posting the video. He later called the experience “traumatic,” writing that he chose to record the altercation instead of immediately calling the police “because the situation could have easily been misrepresented and turned into the narrative that portrayed me as the perpetrator,” he wrote. “I needed evidence to protect myself.”
“Boy, get out of here with your gay ass!” Colbert says in the video. The post has been viewed more than 6 million times on X. She continued later: “I’m sick of this gay ss sht, bro.”
She later told the victim that he needed to “put some clothes on.” On social media, he posted photos of himself in a hoodie and t-shirt, which he alleges is what he wore.
A 9-1-1 call was received to report a fight inside the store. When Alexandria police sought to capture Colbert, she fled in her car. Colbert was detained and taken into custody on Thursday, January 8. She is currently awaiting extradition to Alexandria, where she will face charges of eluding a felony, assault and battery, property destruction, and operating an unregistered vehicle.
According to the Alexandria Police Department (ADP), Colbert’s case is being reviewed for potential bias-based penalty increases. Virginia law imposes harsher criminal penalties for acts motivated by bias against a victim because of their race, religion, national origin, disability, or sexual orientation.
Shortly after Colbert was arrested, the ADP revealed a new hate crime policy established over the previous year. Created in collaboration with faith, civil rights, and community organizations such as the NAACP Alexandria Branch and the Beth El Hebrew Congregation, the policy requires police officers to conduct in-person, preliminary investigations of suspected hate crimes, document and report any hate crimes to a supervisor, and inform victims of their rights. Detectives are then compelled to respond quickly and begin investigating the alleged hate crime. Meanwhile, the ADP will compile hate crime data twice a year.
“The goal was to create a transparent framework that builds community trust and ensures every incident is addressed with the seriousness it deserves,” Darrilyn Franklin, President of the NAACP Alexandria Branch, said in a statement.
