A fight breaks out as the white supremacist group, The Patriot Front marches thru the city of Boston on July 2, 2022. | Source: MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images / Getty
Members of the Patriot Front — the group that swears it’s not a white supremacist group despite how often it gets caught participating in white supremacist-friendly activities — have been ordered to pay more than $2.7 million to a Black teacher in Boston who was attacked and allegedly called a “tar baby” by rabid white men in 2022.
Last October, we reported the story of educator and classically trained musician Charles Murrell III, who filed a federal lawsuit against the Patriot Front members he said punched and kicked him after addressing him with the aforementioned racist language.
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On Monday, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani found Patriot Front and its leader, Thomas Rousseau, liable for the attack on Murrell and ordered them to pay $2 million in punitive damages and $755,000 in damages for his injuries, pain and suffering, lost wages, and future earnings, according to the Boston Globe. They were also ordered to pay Murrell’s legal fees, which have not yet been determined.
Charles M. Murrell III, who was attacked by members of the white supremacist Patriot Front group two years ago when they were marching in Boston, testified in his civil rights case seeking damages in federal court. | Source: Boston Globe / Getty
In her 27-page decision, Talwani denounced the group of disgruntled white men as a bunch of despicable racists, citing video footage that showed Patriot Front members “pinning Murrell against the light post and pushing him into the busy road, to promote the view that non-white individuals like Murrell should be subordinated to white people.”
As we previously reported, the attack on Murrell took place when the saxophonist was walking along Dartmouth Street on his way to the Boston Public Library to play the sax during the Fourth of July weekend 2022. But Murrell’s trip to the library put him in the path of a “flash march” that the white men dressed in khakis, blue shirts, sunglasses, and baseball caps (the new Klan robe) and carrying signs that read “Reclaim America” (the new “Whites Only” sign) were participating in. At some point, the Patriot Front members spotted a Black man who was trying his damndest to mind his own business, and that’s when Muller’s world changed for the worse.
From the Globe:
“I thought I was going to die,” said Murrell, 37, while testifying in U.S. District Court in Boston last October during a hearing to determine how much money the Patriot Front and Rousseau must pay him for violating his civil rights. The judge previously found Patriot Front and Rousseau liable for the attack after they failed to respond to a civil rights suit filed by Murrell in August 2023.
Murrell said he blacked out during the July 2, 2022 attack and was shocked when he later saw news photographs showing a Patriot Front marcher pressing a shield against his head, forcing it into a light post.
Murrell recounted trying to record the group with his cellphone, but said he became so nervous and “fidgety” that he couldn’t unlock the phone.
He said the group called him “tar baby” and chanted other things that he didn’t understand, but their tone “immediately let me know I was possibly in danger.”
Murrell said he was “trying to figure out what’s happening” and “had no clue who these people were” as they surrounded him and shouted, “Don’t break ranks,” as they blocked his way and repeatedly hit him. He said they wouldn’t let him walk on the sidewalk and he was terrified that he was going to be shoved into oncoming traffic on the street.
The white supremacist group The Patriot Front marches through the city of Boston on July 2, 2022. | Source: MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images / Getty
Despite the existence of video footage of the attack, none of Murrell’s assailants have been charged with a criminal offense, although, officer Mark Marron, a spokesperson for the Boston Police, said Monday that there is “still an active and open investigation” into the altercation.
Welp, when the criminal justice system is working slowly (or not at all), sometimes you have to make violent racists say “I’m sorry” with their wallets. Hopefully, Murrell receives every cent he is owed.
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