The 22-year-old man accused of strangling a Sikh Uber driver and uttering racially abusive language during the attack in Bellingham, Washington, is now facing hate crime charges, Q13 FOX reports.
Whatcom County prosecutors charged Grifin Levi Sayers with malicious harassment, which according to Q13 FOX is also known as a hate crime.
Sayers has also been charged with second-degree assault.
The driver Sayers assaulted picked him up on Thursday morning so he could make some purchases. After dropping Sayers off at the original pick up location, Sayers allegedly grabbed the driver by the throat and began choking him.
According to the police, Sayers made “racially biased comments about the victim’s ‘dark skin,’ the fact he was from India and the turban he was wearing.”
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Members of the Sikh community have called the attacks heinous.
“The attacker knew his Uber driver was Sikh,” Amrith Kaur, legal director of the Sikh Coalition, told Q13 FOX. “And he chose to both physically and verbally attack him because of it.”
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RE: Uber passenger who allegedly assaulted Sikh driver now facing hate crime charges: Some time in the 1900s, the men of Bellingham, in the middle of the night, their wives unaware, rounded up all the Sikh workers and put them on a barge or train, like they did the Chinese throughout the west, to an unknown destination. And here is another instance in Bellingham. Sad
Your comment got us curious. Here’s more information on the incident you referenced. https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/bham_history.htm