Man Gets 90 Days in Assault on Racially Mixed Couple

A Jamul man was sentenced Thursday to 90 days in County Jail for assaulting a racially mixed couple on June 20 at the Dulzura Cafe.

Ronald Olear, 28, was ordered to jail for his part in the attack. Olear is scheduled to begin his sentence on Jan. 17, the same day that William Jackson, also of Jamul and a co-defendant in the case, is to be sentenced.

Olear pleaded guilty to drawing a knife on Luther and Rita Moore, who had been eating breakfast at the cafe. Jackson was convicted of assaulting the couple with a tow chain.

Luther Moore, a black bus driver, and his wife, Rita, a white mobile-home broker, said they were subjected to racial slurs by the pair of white men soon after entering the roadside cafe on California 94.

“We got about five feet in the door when we heard the first remarks,” Moore said in an earlier interview. “(One man) said, ‘Thank God I’m a . . . redneck . . . It went on and on . . . innuendoes about her being a slut for being with a black guy. I’m sitting there . . . listening to their ‘nigger’ talk and listening to them call my wife a slut.”

Sheriff’s investigators said that Olear and Jackson attacked Moore as the couple was leaving the restaurant. Moore said he ran across the highway and pulled a sign post out of the ground to defend himself with. At one point Jackson reportedly wrapped the tow chain around Moore’s neck, but the fight ended when a California Department of Forestry fire truck arrived at the scene.

Sheriffs deputies also responded, and Olear and Jackson were later arrested.

On Thursday, Olear disputed charges that the attack was racially motivated. Olear said he merely responded when Luther Moore challenged him to fight and pointed to his own racially mixed background.

Olear’s attorney said his client is part black and has a black roommate. According to a probation report, Olear said his father’s parents were black and Indian, while his mother was a German Jew who lost family members in Nazi concentration camps. He told probation officials that the Moore’s portrayal of him as a racist or redneck is “really stupid.”

But San Diego Superior Court Judge G. Dennis Adams told Olear that “It’s very obvious that the Moores didn’t go into the Dulzura Cafe looking for a fight. It’s fortunate there was not greater injury than what occurred.”