Lee Mouat, a 42-year-old white man, has been charged with a hate crime after yelling “Black Lives don’t matter” and striking a Black teenager in the face with a bike lock.
The victim’s name and age have not been released.
As documented by a federal criminal complaint, on June 6, four witnesses at Michigan’s Sterling State Park watched Mouat verbally attack a group of Black youth. He screamed racial slurs at them, saying “Black lives don’t matter” and “n****** don’t belong on this beach.”
Witness also said that Mouat threatened to “bash their heads in if they don’t turn [their music] down.” He then charged towards them and proceeded to hit one them in the face with a chain bike lock. As a result, the boy was taken to a hospital, where he was treated for the fracture and the loss of several of his teeth.
The Charlotte Observer shared that one of the witnesses heard Mouat saying that he wanted to hit the group with his cooler because they were “playing gang music.”
Mouat was arrested in June and is facing one count of willfully causing bodily harm to the victim because of race. Buzzfeed‘s investigative reporting revealed that Mouat is still in jail is being held on $100,000 bond.