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An appeals court upheld the conviction of a man accused of pulling up on a Black police officer wearing a white hood and calling her a racial slur in an apparent act of racial intimidation, Atlanta Black Star reports.
Trenton Whitaker-Blakey, 27, was found guilty of felony intimidation in May in connection to his January encounter with a Black officer in Muncie, Indiana.
According to court documents, the police officer was heading into the city hall building when Whitaker-Blakey "popped up" from behind a car wearing a backpack and a "white hood" over his head with eye holes cut out. He then approached the officer and called her a "n****r," court documents state.
Whitaker-Blakey confessed to using the slur and wearing the hood, which was a pillowcase. However, the man claimed her donned the hood because it was cold outside and alleged he didn't direct the slur at the Black officer.
The suspect also admitted he had attended a "meeting" with a white supremacist group, but said he wasn't a part of any white supremacist organizations.
During his trial, the officer said Whitaker-Blakey's actions made her “think about lynchings and murders of Black individuals — rapes of Black women — basically any bad thing that could happen to a Black person.”
Judge Douglas Mawhorr sentenced Whitaker-Blakey to 30 months in prison saying his behavior indicated that he wanted to make the officer feel like he was “going to commit a crime against her – injure her – make her fight – make her do something against her will which is defend herself. That’s why it was a threat.” Whitaker-Blakey's appeal was rejected by the Indiana Court of Appeals in a unanimous decision earlier this month.
“Before assessing the merits of this case, we note that it is undeniable that the word ‘n****r’ used conventionally – namely as an insult – continues to be an oft-heard feature of the soundtrack of American racism at its most base and violent,” the appeals court affirmed. “The use of such a racial slur ‘flows from the fountain of purpose to injure.'”
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