Rose Mary Ayala, Hospital Patient, Faces Hate Crime Battery in Hot Coffee Attack on Helper

What's the deal today with young people breaking into nursing getting picked on? Earlier today we informed about the jail sentence for a nursing teacher who got too touchy-feely with his teen students.

Now it's a Hispanic hospital patient who is being charged with the "unprovoked hate crime battery" of an African-American nursing assistant, according to authorities.

The male, a certified nursing assistant, was serving coffee to patients in the lounge at UCI Medical Center in Orange around 6:30 a.m. July 18 when he was hit by the racial slurs and taunts of a Hispanic woman who had been admitted four days earlier, according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA).

The nursing assistant chose to ignore the woman, but as he was getting sugar for another patient, the woman allegedly came up behind him and poured hot coffee down his right leg.

Hospital security notified UCI police, which launched an investigation that resulted in the arrest of Rose Mary Ayala, 38, of Orange. The OCDA was scheduled to arraign Ayala this morning on one felony count of hate crime battery.

She faces up to three years in state prison if convicted.

According to the OCDA:

A hate crime battery charge requires the deliberate intimidation and interference with another person's free exercise and enjoyment of a right, secured by the Constitutions and laws of California and the United States, based on their race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender or sexual orientation.

You know nurses have to put up with cranky patients and demanding bosses, but creepy teachers and hot-java attackers, too? No wonder they complain of being underpaid.

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