Civil rights activist faces charges after reporting racist attack in Indiana
Source: Associated Press
Vauhxx Booker condemns ‘retaliation’ after he reported that white men assaulted him and threatened to ‘get a noose’
Associated Press
Mon 2 Aug 2021 17.55 EDT
A Black civil rights activist who reported that a group of white men assaulted him and threatened to “get a noose” at a southern Indiana lake is facing criminal charges more than a year after the confrontation that earlier led to charges against two of the alleged attackers.
Vauhxx Booker, a member of the Monroe county human rights commission, was charged with misdemeanor trespass and felony battery for his involvement in last year’s Fourth of July incident at Lake Monroe, according to court documents filed last Friday by a special prosecutor in the case.
Booker condemned the decision, calling it an “outrageous act of punitive retaliation and prosecutorial vindictiveness”.
The Monroe county branch of the NAACP demanded that the charges against Booker be dropped immediately and called for the special prosecutor, Sonia Leerkamp, to resign.
“This incident has been a continual case of a victim being re-victimized by the system,” Booker’s legal team said in statement on Monday. “It is the victim in this assault – Vauhxx Booker – who is being made to pay for having stood his ground against malicious racist name-calling, physical assault, and threats against his life.”
The alleged assault gained national attention last summer when Booker said he called 911 after five men assaulted him and pinned him to a tree at the lake just south of Bloomington.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/02/indiana-lake-vauhxx-booker-alleged-attack-race
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FBI investigating alleged racist attack at Indiana lake after widely shared Facebook video
Thread starter Maaliiin Start dateJul 6, 2020
https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/fbi-investigating-alleged-racist-attack-at-indiana-lake-after-widely-shared-facebook-video.3682829/page-5
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Two men charged in July 4 ‘attempted lynching’ at Indiana lake
Post author:admin
Post published:July 20, 2020
Two men were charged Friday in an alleged assault against a Black man who was seen in a viral video being held against his will in the woods near an Indiana lake on the Fourth of July.
Sean Purdy and Jerry Cox are charged with various crimes, including confinement and battery against 36-year-old Bloomington man, Vauhxx Booker, according to IndyStar. Monroe County Prosecutor Erika Oliphant has filed two active warrants for the two men and says Booker will face no charges.
Purdy is charged with criminal confinement, battery resulting in injury and intimidation, all felonies. Cox is charged with aiding or causing criminal confinement, felony battery resulting in injury, intimidation and two misdemeanor counts of battery.
Booker, a member of Monroe County Human Rights Commission, posted his account of the July 4 incident along with video to his Facebook account, writing, “I don’t want to recount this, but I was almost the victim of an attempted lynching.” He went on: “On July 4th evening others and me were victims of what I would describe as a hate crime. I was attacked by five white men [with Confederate flags] who literally threatened to lynch me in front of numerous witnesses.”
Booker said he and his friends were visiting a public beach on Lake Monroe outside Bloomington, Ind. to join a gathering when a group of white men said they were on private property and began following them.
Some of the men became belligerent, he said. When he approached “sober seeming group members” to “see if we could smooth things over a bit,” the confrontation escalated. Video posted to social media shows a group of white men holding Booker to a tree as his friends plead with them to release him. In the video, one man shouts at the camera, “You happy about this, you nappy-headed bitch? You and your five white friends?” As Booker’s friends leave, one of the men follows, shouting, “Those Black boys want to start it all.”
More:
https://icmglt.org/two-men-charged-in-july-4-attempted-lynching-at-indiana-lake/
