Prosecutors: Tinley Park (Ill.) man charged with hate crime in attack on black worker

[marmar]

By Andy Grimm Tribune reporter
7:03 p.m. CDT, September 4, 2012


A Tinley Park man was charged with a felony hate crime for allegedly attacking a man who had been hired by a bank to maintain a neighbor’s foreclosed home Sunday.

Joseph Berndt, 47, allegedly shouted racial slurs at the 51-year-old African-American man as he was working outside a house in the 6200 block of West 179th Street, then threw a beer can and a brick at the man, chased him through the yard while brandishing a pipe, and attempted to strangle him, prosecutors said.

The victim said Berndt approached him as he was checking the gas and electric meters at the house, which he had been hired to maintain and had visited several times during the week prior, according to a Tinley Park Police report.

“Hey, what are you doing? You are probably breaking in you (expletive),” Berndt said, the report states. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/suburbs/tinley_park/chi-tinley-park-man-charged-with-hate-crime-for-attacking-black-worker-20120904,0,337128.story