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11.23.2016

Indian man sucker punched in hate crime attack

"Things are different now."



Dispatches from Trump America... This week in Pittsburgh, a man was arrested for assaulting an Indian man at a restaurant after calling him racial slurs and apparently mistaking him for what he called a "f*cking Muslim."

Man arrested on charges of ethnic intimidation, assault at South Hills Village mall

54-year-old Jeffrey Burgess allegedly told Ankur Mehta, who was sitting next to him at the bar at a Red Robin Restaurant, that "things are different now" and "I don't want you sitting next to me -- you people."

He then reportedly called Mehta a "sand n**ger" and a "f*cking Muslim" before launching an unprovoked attack, hitting him four or five more times in the face with his elbows and fists. Mehta, by the way, is not Muslim -- not that it matters, because this guy was clearly out to start some racist shit with "you people."


Mehta, who had been wearing earbuds and working on his computer, was completely oblivious to Burgess' comments and unaware that he was about to be attacked, according to witnesses. He never saw it coming. The poor guy suffered a loose tooth and a cut to his upper lip, and was treated at a local hospital.

Burgess was charged with ethnic intimidation, simple assault, harassment and public drunkenness.

I think it's pretty clear what this asshole meant when he said "things are different now." The same things that emboldened him to attack an innocent man because he looked a certain way -- Muslim, Indian, Brown, etc.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said this was just the latest incident in a recent wave of anti-Muslim hate crimes since the November 8 election of Donald Trump.

"Our political leaders need to speak out against such breakdowns in social order, apparently inspired by reckless rhetoric during the election cycle," Safdar Khawaja, head of the local chapter of CAIR.

Can't a brown man sit at the bar and mind his own business without fear of getting sucker punched by a drunken racist? Apparently not anymore, and not in Trump's America.

More here: Drunken Pittsburgh man sucker punches oblivious Indian man he mistook for ‘sand n****r’