Six people accused of assaulting a Black man at a bar earlier this month will face criminal charges, Avalon Police announced Tuesday.
On July 7, patron Paul Morris said he was targeted and attacked by a group of suspected white nationalists who called him the n-word, then assaulted him in the back room of the Jackman Inn bar, CBS Pittsburgh reported. Morris said the attack was unprovoked.
“They’re definitely going to be charged with simple assault, ethnic intimidation, conspiracy for simple assault, and a conspiracy for ethnic intimidation,” police chief Tom Kokoski said.
Police have since charged Natasha Dawn Bowers, Terrence Raymon Stockey, Jeremy L. Ingram, Travis Lee Cornell, Crystal Lynn Shields and James Edward Kryl in connection to the racially motivated beating.
According to authorities, the suspects were sporting tattoos and t-shirts with the insignia of Keystone United, a neo-Nazi group formerly known as the Keystone State Skin Heads. A woman who was with the group but asked to remain anonymous claimed it was Morris who started the fight. She also denied anyone calling him a racial slur.
That’s not how Morris and witnesses at the bar remember it, however. The victim said one of the suspects called him a racial slur and said his group would eradicate Black folks one by one. The attack came just days after that same group was banned from another local bar after patrons complained and were offended by the group’s t-shirts with hate logos, Channel 11 reported.
“They attacked me because they had hate in their hearts,” said Morris, who’s now in California. “I didn’t do anything to these people.”
Jackie Scanlan, the manager at Jackman Inn, said the group suddenly attacked Morris when the bartender asked them to leave.
“Eight of them jumped Paul,” Scanlan told the station. “He was hit in the face. He bent down to pick up his glasses. He was hit again.”
“What happened wasn’t right,” she added. “Everyone who was here and witnessed it stands behind what I just said, and I think they’re willing to stand up.”
Head chef Javon Jenkins told Channel 11 he remembers Morris being hit in the mouth so hard he “had to pull his lip off his tooth.” Jenkins said he tried to break up the fight but wound up getting assaulted as well.
“I’m trying to get people off of him,” he said. “I’m getting hit; dude hits me with a bottle.”
Scanlon said the bar’s clientele is racially mixed and doesn’t discriminate about who can come in, but added that “people who hate, who have some kind of mission to hurt other people” are definitely not welcomed.
