[Vision2020] Race-Based Assault in Coeur d'Alene

[Tom Hansen]

These racists have graduated now from name-calling and swastikas to
physical assault.

Courtesy of today's (January 28, 2010) Spokesman-Review.

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Man reports race-based assault
Saturday attack follows other incidents targeting minorities
Alison Boggs The Spokesman-Review

A man was racially harassed and assaulted shortly after midnight Saturday
in Coeur d’Alene while walking home from the grocery store.

The man told police that he was walking along the 800 block of East
Harrison Avenue when a red truck passed him slowly. The occupants yelled
obscenities and racial epithets. The man has a Hispanic name, and his race
is listed as black on the report filed by the Coeur d’Alene Police
Department.

The truck stopped ahead of him, heading north on Ninth Street, and three
men got out and beat him, the man told police. They punched him in the
face twice and kicked him in the back of the head, the police report said.

The man described the vehicle as a “big red truck with big tires” and told
police the word “BUTLER” was written across the tailgate. Richard Butler
was the leader of the Aryan Nations until his death in 2004.

The incident was reported Sunday but not released to media until
Wednesday. Coeur d’Alene police Sgt. Christie Wood, a spokeswoman, said
officers have more time to complete reports “if there isn’t a known
suspect and someone didn’t get arrested.”

The incident is the latest in a series of racial harassments and assaults
that have occurred in North Idaho and Spokane since spring. They have
included the spray-painting of swastikas on cars, a noose left on the
north Spokane doorstep of a black human rights activist, and beatings of
Native American and black men. Racist literature also has been delivered
to neighborhoods in North Idaho and Spokane.

“They’re escalating. One thing we have learned over the years is when
those things happen, they escalate, and they escalate into a series of
crimes. It is so awful and it is so discouraging,” said Tony Stewart of
the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations. “With all our energy we
condemn such atrocious behavior.”

The man beaten on Saturday told police he was staying with his girlfriend
and walked to the Safeway store on Fourth Street to get some milk. The
store wasn’t open, so he turned around. He was assaulted while walking
back, the report said. He reported the incident Sunday around 11 a.m.

Neither the man nor his girlfriend could be reached for comment.

The man had fresh bruises above and below his eyes, a swollen lip and a
red mark on the back of his head when a police officer met with him at
Kootenai Medical Center’s emergency room, the report said.

When the officer called back to clarify some points, the man “said that he
was leaving today and not coming back and hung up. From the sounds of it,”
the officer wrote, “he didn’t want to pursue this matter.”

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown