Police Say Assault Was Not Hate Crime : Racism: The shooting of an Ocean Beach man was at first thought to be a racially caused crime, but now police believe it was just assault.

The suspected Ocean Beach hate crime that prompted more than 200 to rally against what they said was a resurgence of racism in the beachfront community appears to be nothing more than an assault case, police say.

The shotgun shooting of Philip Lewis, 26, early the morning of July 30, became a focal point for those in Ocean Beach who said racism there was on the rise.

The rally was organized after Frank Gormlie, a community activist in Ocean Beach, posted hundreds of flyers around the area advertising the parking-lot gathering. Even though it took place just five days after the shooting, more than 200 attended.

But now police investigators are saying there is more to the case than originally reported.

Lewis told reporters he was chased by four white men in a pickup who yelled “hey nigger” at him after he left the residence of friends at the intersection of Brighton Avenue and Abbott Street after midnight.

But Lewis said in a statement to police that he mistook one of the four men in the pickup for a white friend who Lewis jokingly refers to as nigger, and he yelled that disparaging term at the men before they had communicated with him, said San Diego Police Sgt. Ed Casamassima, who coordinates patrols and investigations in the Western Division office.

Statements from Lewis and the Meredith family, who Lewis said he had been visiting that night, also indicate that they did not know each other, Casamassima said.

But Herb Meredith, 54, said Friday that his family and Lewis know each other “casually” through their 20-year-old son, Fran, who Meredith said has lifted weights with Lewis.

“It’s pretty much just an assault case,” said Casamassima. “There’s no evidence as to what the motive is right now.”

Lewis could not be reached for comment.

Herb Meredith now says that Lewis was not at his house before the shooting.

“He had not been at our house but at a place relatively close to where we were at,” said Meredith.

Meredith says that his family has been the target of continuous racism in the community.

“I do know that the people who have taken part in violent acts toward us have been racist to the core,” he said, saying there have been “several incidents” during the previous few months directed at his family that were “racial in nature.”

The most frequent acts, he said, are the two or three insults and taunts a week that come from vehicles that drive past his apartment.

Casamassima emphasized that the Lewis shooting was never officially classified as anything more than an assault.

“There is no information that has been developed so far to show that it was a hate crime. More and more, it’s leading away from that,” said Casamassima. But he said investigators will continue to try to confirm whether the crime had a racial aspect.