Lake County authorities search for woman reported missing after berating Trump supporter

The Lake County Sheriff’s Office continued its search Sunday for a Bay Area woman who earlier this month made national headlines and received subsequent death threats after publicly shaming a man for wearing a Make America Great Again hat at a coffee shop.

Rebecca Parker Mankey of Palo Alto was last seen leaving a friend’s house in Lake County on Thursday morning after a weeklong stay, according to the sheriff’s office. Mankey did not return home to her husband several hours later, and the agency received a missing person’s report at 1 a.m. the following morning, the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

Mankey came under fire after she used Facebook to condemn a 74-year-old man she had encountered at a Palo Alto Starbucks on April 1, several news outlets reported.

The man was wearing a red hat with the slogan “Make American Great Again,” popularized by President Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Mankey confronted the man, yelling at him and asking others in the store to do the same, which she wrote about in a Facebook post later screen-captured by NBC Bay Area.

“He will never forget me and will think seriously about wearing that hat in my town ever again,” Mankey wrote. “If you see him in this hat, please confront him.”

Mankey’s personal information soon after was made public and shared on right-wing social media pages, and she and her family received multiple threats of injury and death, the Bayshore Progressive Democrats, a political group that Mankey co-chaired at the time, wrote in a Facebook post.

“We are acquainted with a number of examples of how nonviolent engagement has successfully changed the hearts and minds of some very racist people while not allowing their statements and beliefs to go unchallenged,” the group wrote in a Facebook post April 2.

“(Mankey’s) actions did not follow these principles and do not reflect our organization’s political philosophy and approach.”

Mankey also lost her job as a result of the incident and later stepped down as co-chair of the group, the Bayshore Progressive Democrats said.

Lake County detectives were unable to make contact with Mankey as of Sunday, though they believe she may have traveled to Washington state, the Sheriff’s Office said in the news release.

She drives a black 2010 Honda Accord, authorities said. Anyone with information about Mankey’s whereabouts is asked to call Lake County Sheriff’s Sgt. John Gregore at 707-263-2690.

You can reach Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez at 707-521-5203 or nashelly.chavez@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter?@nashellytweets.