Dereliction of duty: Indiana DNR police did nothing after racists tried to lynch a black man, then protesters were attacked by a hit-and-run driver
Prosecutors have filed state felony charges against two white men who attacked a black man hiking with white friends to a public beach at an Indiana lake on July 4 to watch a lunar eclipse.
During the attack on Vauhxx Booker, 36, of Bloomington, five drunken white men pinned him to a tree, tried to break his arms, shouted racist slogans and epithets, and yelled “get a noose!” They also assaulted witnesses taking video of the incident. The men claimed the group was trespassing. The group believed they had the landowner’s permission.
Several strangers, who apparently were using the same path, stopped to watch and video the incident. “I shudder to think that if those other folks hadn’t been there that we would be planning a memorial service,” Booker’s attorney later said. An attorney for one of the accused men held a press conference and claimed Booker started the altercation and is “lying” about the incident; read that story here.
State DNR officers responding to a 911 call made no arrests, refused to interview witnesses, and did not ask the victim if he needed medical attention, prompting the mayor of nearby Bloomington to complain to the governor. DNR later issued a statement that its officers are “investigating” the incident. Subsequently, the FBI confirmed it’s investigating the incident as a possible federal hate crime.
Booker told a local newspaper that a DNR supervisor kept talking about the property owner’s rights and said, “This officer was clearly elevating property rights above my life.”
A day later, a driver slammed a car into a crowd gathered at the Bloomington courthouse to protest the incident and drove off, leaving behind two injured people, one of whom was hospitalized. Several days later, a 66-year-old white woman with a criminal record was arrested and charged in that incident, but released on $500 bond.
Read story here, here, and here, watch the videos below, and read the victim’s statement here. The incident follows another racist incident at the same lake just a few days before. Read that story here.
(This story was updated on July 18, 2020.)
DNR officers are conservation officers equipped more to handle hunting and fishing offenses or what you expect game wardens to handle.
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Then why didn’t the 911 dispatcher send real cops?