Mom says teen son was brutally attacked for pro-police views; called it a ‘hate crime’

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An Alabama mother said her 17-year-old son – who had recently voiced his support for law enforcement amid protests over fatal police shootings – was severely beaten in an empty parking lot in Sylacauga, an attack she called a racially motivated hate crime.

Brandi Allen told ABC affiliate WBMA that her son, Brian Ogle, suffered a fractured skull and brain trauma in the brutal attack following a Friday-night football game.

“Not knowing if my son is going to make it to his 18th birthday this month,” she told the station, “I don’t know if anybody can understand what that feels like.”

A spokeswoman for UAB Hospital in Birmingham said Monday that Ogle was improving and his condition was upgraded from critical to fair.

Police and Sylacauga school district officials said Ogle, who is white, was beaten Friday after a high school homecoming game, according to Fox affiliate WBRC.

His mother told WBMA that Ogle had spoken out on Facebook in support of law enforcement after some students at his school wore Black Lives Matter shirts to class.

A Facebook page that matches Ogle’s name and likeness includes numerous posts about the Black Lives Matter movement and violent protests that erupted following police shootings.

The page also includes a viral video that shows a black man giving hugs to police officers in Charlotte, where outrage spilled into the streets after an officer shot and killed a black man, Keith Lamont Scott, on Sept. 20. That deadly encounter came just days after another black man, Terence Crutcher, was shot and killed by an officer in Tulsa while standing near his vehicle in the street.

The two shootings, four days and 1,000 miles apart, followed a tense summer filled with high-profile officer-involved shootings, as well as deadly assaults on police in Dallas and Baton Rouge.

Authorities in Sylacauga confirmed to WBMA that there have been related issues at Sylacauga High School, where Ogle is a student, and that the issues may have been a factor in his attack.

But police do not have evidence that the suspects are students or that the incident was related to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Still, Sylacauga Police Chief Kelley Johnson called the assault a “senseless act of violence.”

He said in a statement that he knows some citizens are concerned that the police department or the state’s department of education will “sweep this under the rug.”

“But any intelligent person should see that that is not possible,” Johnson said. “I am not one to ‘sweep’ any crime under anything much less a crime as violent as this.

“I now ask everyone to pray for the 17 year old victim of this assault, his family, the officers and investigators working the case and while you’re at it say a little prayer for our community as a whole so that maybe we can get past this and be a stronger community because of it. I call on our pastors and community leaders to step up and help us bridge this divide between the black and white races.”

Johnson said the police department has increased security in the middle and high schools.

Todd Freeman, superintendent of Sylacauga City Schools, said the district’s “immediate concern is for the health and well-being of our student.”

“Every child who attends Sylacauga City Schools is part of our family and we are grieved that this happened to one of our own,” he said in a statement. “We are steadfastly praying for healing and a full recovery.”

Allen, Ogle’s mother, told WBMA over the weekend that she wants justice for her son.

“I want to see them in jail,” she said of her son’s attackers. “This most certainly is a race issue; it’s a hate crime.”

Sylacauga police said they had identified several people of interest, though it is unclear whether any arrests had been made. The district attorney’s office will determine charges.

“My son could have lost his life,” Allen told WBMA. “I won’t stop until they are punished.”

Featured Image: Ogle Family


(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Lindsey Bever

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