MASSAPEQUA, N.Y. -- A white woman said she was in shock after a black man threw a 10-inch chunk of concrete at her sport utility vehicle in what police were labeling a hate crime.

Kim McCandless, of West Islip, was driving to the Sunrise Mall in Massapequa on Monday with her two daughters, a niece and a nephew, all between 7 months and 4 years old, when the concrete struck her windshield. No one was injured.

McCandless said she made eye contact with the attacker before he threw the concrete.

"I was in shock," she said. "I didn't understand why. Why me, why my kids, why my car?"

Carl Graves, of Amityville, threw the concrete at the SUV because the driver was white, Nassau County police Detective Lt. Karl Schoepp said. Graves and two friends were in the mall for a couple of hours Monday morning and were upset that the arcade and the movie theater were closed, Schoepp said.

He said Graves, 20, told police "the mall had become too white."

McCandless said she got out of the car, wanting "to scream," and checked on the children, who were crying. She said the men laughed as they walked away.

"I have four kids to raise, and it's really scary that I have to worry about where they go shopping or where they do whatever, because I'm a different color than that person," she said.

Graves was ordered held on $10,000 bond after being arraigned Tuesday on charges of criminal mischief, reckless endangerment and menacing as a bias crime.

There was no telephone listing for Graves in Amityville. The district attorney's office did not immediately return a phone message or a page seeking information on whether Graves had an attorney.