White Prosecutor Drops Hate Crime Charge Against White Man who Assaulted a Black Man w/A Spear Like Pole while Yelling Racial Slurs

From [HERE] Eugene police arrested a man Tuesday who allegedly stabbed a Black man with a sharpened metal pole after yelling racial slurs Aug. 31. The suspect, 36-year-old Marcus Crowe, was arrested by police on charges of second-degree bias crime and second-degree assault.

He was arraigned on the assault charge but not the bias crime in Lane County Circuit Court Wednesday afternoon.

Following the investigation, police said in a news release Crowe was with a woman he knew, and both were allegedly yelling racial slurs Aug. 31 afternoon in the area of West 11th Avenue and Chambers Street.

The two accosted the victim, a Black man in his late 20s after he asked them to stop yelling racially offensive terms in public, police said. 

During the dispute, Crowe threw the "spear-like" metal pole at the victim, police said, piercing the victim and causing a "severe" penetrating wound. The man's wounds were treated for at the hospital. 

Asked about the decision to not file a bias crime charge, senior prosecutor Erik Hasselman from the Lane County District Attorney's Office said Crowe would not face greater punishment if the assault was found to be motivated by racial bias. He added that it can create an additional hurdle for the state to prove in court if it is charged as a bias crime, without leading to any change in the outcome. 

"For some lesser misdemeanor offenses, the added element of bias, racial or otherwise, can provide greater accountability in the criminal justice system," Hasselman said in an email. "This case is not one of those."

Crowe's next court date is Nov. 1. 

The victim has since recovered from his injuries, police say.

Police ask people who were in the area at the time or who witnessed the crime to call Eugene detective Jeff Baugh at 541-682-5292.