Three San Jose State University students in California have been charged with racially bullying their black roommate by clamping a bicycle lock around his neck and decorating their four-bedroom suite with a Confederate flag, Nazi symbols, photos of Adolf Hitler and a white board with a racial epithet, prosecutors said Thursday.
The three students -- Logan Beaschler, 18, of Bakersfield; Joseph Bomgardner, 19, of Clovis; and Colin Warren, 18, of Woodacre -- are charged with misdemeanor hate crime and battery, the Santa Clara district attorney's office said.
Neither the three students nor their attorneys could be immediately reached for comment.
Beaschler was booked in the Santa Clara County Jail on Thursday, with bail set at $15,000.
White students charged with hate crime
The defendants face a maximum sentence of one year in county jail if convicted, prosecutors said.
The 17-year-old roommate who was the alleged victim wasn't named by prosecutors. He suffered a minor injury when he fought off the bike lock around his neck, prosecutors said.
The defendants are accused of nicknaming their black roommate "Three-Fifths," an apparent reference to a U.S. constitutional provision that counted slaves as "three-fifths of all other persons," prosecutors said.
When the African-American student objected to that name, the three roommates in the campus housing began calling him "Fraction," the prosecutor's office said.
The alleged harassment began in August and lasted through October, prosecutors said.
This is seriously ****ed up, but "everyone's so sensitive now and racism is a thing if the past."
It makes people feel better to brush issues under the rug, and try to force them to remain there. However, times like these are when we all see it isn't working.
There actually is a fourth suspect as well. They will be charging them soon. This is all everyone is talking about here in the Bay Area. Such an embarrassment honestly. Such a diverse and beautiful place to live.
They should be ashamed.
