A white supremacist group has been ordered to pay millions to a Black musician who was the target of an apparent racist attack in Boston, per Newsone.
On Monday (January 13), U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani found the Patriot Front and its leader, Thomas Rousseau, liable for the 2022 attack against Charles Murrell III, who was punched, kicked, and hit with racist language while on his way to play the saxophone at the Boston Public Library. The Patriot Front was ordered to pay $2 million in punitive damages and $755,000 in damages for Murrell's injuries, pain and suffering, lost wages, and future earnings.
The verdict came after Murrell filed a federal lawsuit against the white supremacist group following the 2022 attack. While walking to the Boston Public Library, Murrell encountered members of the Patriot Front participating in a "flash march" where they were carrying signs that read "Reclaim America."
Video footage 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," Talwani wrote in her 27-page decision.
Murrell said the group called him "tar baby" during the attack and shouted other epithets that “immediately let me know I was possibly in danger.”
“I thought I was going to die,” Murrell previously testified.
None of the Murrell's attackers have been criminally charged. On Monday, Mark Marron, a spokesperson for the Boston Police, said an investigation into the incident is still "active and open."
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