Woman Charged With Assaulting Artist at Blues Fest

A woman faces felony charges in an attack last month on 73-year-old R&B singer Lester Chambers at a San Francisco Bay Area blues festival, where he had just dedicated a song to Trayvon Martin, authorities said Wednesday.

Alameda County prosecutors charged 43-year-old Dinalynn Andrews-Potter of Barstow with felony counts of assault and elder abuse in the July 13 attack at the Hayward Russell City Blues Festival, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Chambers is a member of the Chambers Brothers, best known for their 1968 hit “Time Has Come Today.” He was performing the Curtis Mayfield song “People Get Ready” for Florida teen Martin just after George Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder when Andrews-Potter shouted something and shoved the singer into an amplifier, authorities said. Chambers fell to the ground.

Andrews-Potter was arrested, cited and released after the incident. Hayward police told KGO-TV a warrant for her arrest would be issued Wednesday. Chambers said in an interview this week with the TV station that Andrews-Potter shouted slurs and obscenities at him and screamed “You started this!” before the attack. He said the incident still has him in pain and struggling to perform.

“My nerves are shot. I shake. I can’t sleep,” said Chambers, who has hired his own attorney. “I have a great big lump over here on my left rib cage.” Chambers and his family had asked that Andrews-Potter be charged with a hate crime, but authorities said Andrews-Potter’s motives were unclear and she might not even have been in a position to hear Chambers’ dedication of the song.

Andrews-Potter told police she had a stress disorder and that a repetitive part of the song caused her to snap. It wasn’t clear if she had hired an attorney. “It is a hate crime. There’s no other reason for it,” Chambers said. “She had hate in her face like a demon. Oh, God, it was ugly.”