http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1137768Black man kicked, punched, stabbed by group of white men
Posted By SCOTT DUNN SUN TIMES STAFF
July 31, 2008
Owen Sound police are investigating whether racial hatred played a part in a beating and stabbing downtown late Tuesday night that left a black man with "close to life-threatening" injuries.
In what police say started as a case of mistaken identity, the 42-year-old victim was struck with a two-by-four, punched, kicked and stabbed in the chest at least once.
The attack, which one witness said involved five or six white men, took place about 11:40 p. m. along 2nd Avenue East near 10th Street. The victim underwent surgery in Owen Sound hospital, where he was listed in "serious but stable" condition Wednesday.
A 19-year-old man, Shawn Dyer, of 2nd Avenue East downtown, is in custody facing charges of assault with a weapon and aggravated assault. Police said more arrests are anticipated today.
Others were injured in the attack -- none had life-threatening wounds -- but police consider there to be only one victim, Deputy-Chief Bill Sornberger said, without being more specific to protect the investigation.
The victim is from the Toronto area but is living in a local hotel while working here, Sornberger said.
A female, who had been drinking, mistook the victim for another man and began verbally and physically assaulting him, Sornberger said in a news release. Police said the victim held her in one arm while he called police on his cellphone.
The assault he broke away while she went to an apartment and summoned a group of men, the deputy said. Sornberger said he couldn't get into the reason why the woman was upset, but there was an underlying issue that doesn't involve the man's race.
"It's simple to say that her attack wasn't racially motivated. We're investigating whether or not it escalated from something more because of the racial undertone to it. But it wasn't motivated by that originally," he said.
"Now, does she use racial profanity? Yes," witnesses told police. "She didn't begin this because he was a black man."
"If our investigation reveals that it's a hate crime on top of that, which we don't believe it is right now, but if it does reveal that, we'll be making sure the prosecutor is aware of that."
Sornberger said the woman involved has not been positively identified nor have police been able to interview the victim. Timing of further arrests depend on how quickly police can speak to him, he said.
Bonita Johnson-deMatteis, a local black history activist and the moving force behind the Black History Cairn in Harrison Park, said she can't help thinking the attack was racially motivated because she comes from an interracial family.
"It's hard when you're part of a community that's already been kept down, put in their place and beaten . . . it's hard not to go there," she said. "You're not going to convince anybody in the black community that this wasn't racially motivated, a racial attack.
"It takes five guys to take a guy down? . . . The racial statement is in the action of beating this guy."
Johnson-deMatteis will join speakers, including Rev. James Lawson, a confidant to Martin Luther King, Friday at the opening night event of the 146th annual Emancipation Celebration Festival in Owen Sound. Some 1,000 people, likely half of them black, will celebrate black culture this weekend in the city, the northerly terminus of the Underground Railway.
"This is very sad and discouraging, but I know this isn't a reflection of the white community in Owen Sound and area. This is a reflection of those guys," Johnson-deMatteis said.
Late Wednesday afternoon, city firefighters in scuba gear were searching in the murky waters of the Sydenham River just south of the 10th Street bridge. No weapon was found. Sornberger, in a second interview there, said a second search was underway in another, undisclosed area.
Asked to comment on rumours from people interviewed downtown that the woman alleged she had been the victim of a sexual assault, Sornberger wouldn't comment directly but he did address recent "gossip regarding sexual assaults."
He said police started receiving inquires Sunday about someone committing sexual assaults which, it was suggested, the police hadn't warned the community about.
"And that is false," Sornberger said. "We don't have that occurring here in Owen Sound right now and we're not sure why this woman mistakenly identified this person this morning. We're not sure what her motivation was."
He remained adamant her motive wasn't racial. Eleven police officers, some off-duty, were called in to
work on the case overnight. Dyer was arrested after daybreak, Sornberger said.
Police were still interviewing witnesses Wednesday. "We're very good at making arrests in these things pretty
quickly. Our clearance rate or our solvability is right there and that speaks to our guys knowing the community and knowing the criminal element downtown as well."
It was a busy night for police Tuesday. The weather was hot and people were outdoors, Sornberger said.
"There were all kinds of people milling around," he said. "They were all large groups of males in disputes."
Police also investigated a landlord and tenant dispute at 10th Street East and 3rd Avenue and a fight in the 900 block of 2nd Avenue East. Alcohol appears to be a common factor in all three events, which were otherwise unrelated, Sornberger said.
Article ID# 1137768
