Posted on 05/30/2010 7:41:41 PM PDT by tlb
SEATTLE - A 16-year-old boy from West Seattle says he was held hostage and beaten for hours, all because of the color of his skin.
Shane McClellan says two men kicked and whipped him at gunpoint - and told him they singled him out because he is white.
Tim McClellan, Shane's father, says he barely recognized his son after the brutal assault.
"I didn't know if he was alive or dead," Tim McClellan said.
The incident happened as Shane McClellan was walking home from a birthday party at a friend's house Tuesday around 2 a.m.
Shane says two men called to him from the top of a staircase near the intersection of 14th Avenue SW and SW Holden Street. The men asked for a light, and when Shane walked over to oblige, they knocked him to the ground and started kicking him.
The two men knocked the frightened teen around on the staircase, making racially charged remarks.
"They started bringing up the past - like slavery - being like, white people did this," Shane said in an exclusive interview with KOMO News reporter Shomari Stone.
The attackers stripped off McClellan's belt and started whipping his back.
"They said, 'This is for what your people did to our people.' They were like whipping me with my belt, my studded belt," Shane recounts.
One of the men held a gun against the back of his head and burned his neck with cigarettes.
At one point they shoved McClellan's face into a hole with the gun against his head. They also urinated on him and poured beer over him.
"What he told me, when they were beating him with the belt, they were saying, 'I don't like white people,'" says Shane's father, Tim McClellan.
Shane recalls, "They're like, 'Aw, white boy, what are you doing? You can't hang out this late. What are you doing around here?' They're like, 'White boy has no belonging - being out here at 2 a.m.'"
"They targeted me for being white, and they made it very clear thats why they were assaulting me," Shane says.
The boy told police that one of his attackers appeared to be black and the other Asian or Pacific Islander.
The victim's father says this was nothing short of hours of torture.
"Put a gun to the back of his head and told him if he said anything they were going to blow his head off while they sat there and burned him with cigarettes on the back of the neck," he says.
The two assailants held the victim on the ground for some time, and Shane eventually passed out.
When he regained consciousness, the attackers were gone. They had taken his money, a coat and an MP3 player.
Shane waved down a passing car for help and met his family at the hospital.
Seattle police have referred the case to their Bias Crimes Unit for review as a possible hate crime.
Detectives told the family they are working on a photo montage of possible suspects - and will see if the victim is able to identify his attackers from the line-up.
Shane is now out of the hospital and recovering at home.
But he gets chills when he looks at the photos that were taken of him right after the attack.
"Gets me shaken up every time I see it," he says. "I don't know, I just get vibes overall from seeing those pictures."
He says he has learned not to wander through the neighborhood at 2 in the morning - and he hopes his attackers are caught and charged with a hate crime.
Despite the analysis conducted by the District Attorney’s office, New York City detectives maintained that the defendants had “most likely” been Reyes’ accomplices in the assault and rape of Meili.[12] Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly complained that Morgenthau’s staff had denied his detectives access to “important evidence” needed to conduct a thorough investigation.[11] This claim notwithstanding, no indictments, convictions or disciplinary actions were ever taken against District Attorney’s office staff members. All of the defendants had completed their prison sentences at the time of Tejada’s order, which only had the effect of clearing their names. However one defendant, Santana, remained in jail, convicted of a later, unrelated crime, although his attorney said that his sentence in that case had been extended because of his conviction in the Meili attack.
Some are just dumb enough to believe that.
Exactly. 100% spot on correct. I have taught kids like that in my classroom for over 20 years. It's called having a personal fable. Shrink-speak for just knowing it'll never happen to you. It's always the other guy. This is probably a good kid, judging from the comments he made and his dad made. They both sound like students and parents of mine. This is 2010, nobody has a curfew anymore. My own daughter did waaaaaay back when she was in high school (she is 29 now) but when she was a senior, not then. It was time to see if we'd raised her right so we could send her off to college and feel pretty good about her safety smarts. Even then, I always waited up until she was safe in her own bed. Even if it was after dawn. Maybe this dad was doing the same thing. Also remember, these parents and the kid, they're ALL sheep. They have no idea that the wolves are out there, stalking them for the kill. Me? I'm a SHEEPDOG and I raised my kid to be a Sheepdog, too. Maybe this young man will become a sheepdog because of this experience. I hope so.
'White boy has no belonging - being out here at 2 a.m.'
Couldn't have said it better myself!
Of course it adds up. He couldn't identify his attackers could he? That's the detail he was unable to recall given the trauma and that's no surprise either. But I'll bet those words ring in his ears for the rest of his life and you have NO IDEA (unless you're a veteran teacher as I am -- and in the inner city to boot) how traumatizing something like this will be for a 16 year old kid. I've seen the repercussions of stuff like this for my whole career and it's never pretty.
Seattle police have referred the case to their Bias Crimes Unit for review as a possible hate crime.
“Possible”???
Obviously, this law enforcement agency is infected with the Barney-Fife-itis strain of the super-stupid bug, going around these days...
I seriously doubt we will ever see, or hear anything else about this incident...What a pathetic shame...
“I know many black people I would trust with my very life.”
As do I. I’m speaking of feral, urban blacks who are raised from the cradle to hate whitey, never cooperate with whitey nor even follow the simplest directive from a white teacher or a white cop, etc., and to do whitey harm whenever possible, up to and including mortal violence.
If you’re unaware of them, lucky you.......for now.
“If you read the article, you would know.”
I did and I don’t- are you psychic?
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