Police Probe Finds Man Was Lying About Attack

A police investigation has concluded that a 24-year-old man who claimed he was beaten and robbed by skinheads in the Midway area, then ignored by police as he pleaded for help, was lying.

Kenneth Daughrity’s ( story of being racially attacked by a group of skinheads on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, then having police refuse to take a report on the assault, raised public ire and questions about police ethics.

After a monthlong investigation into the matter, however, police say Daughrity, who is black, fabricated the story.

“We conducted an exhaustive investigation, and the results just didn’t support the story given to police by Kenneth Daughrity,” police spokesman Bill Robinson said Thursday.

The investigation was conducted by Internal Affairs officers and Western Division detectives, who interviewed people in the Rosecrans-area shopping center where Daughrity said he was attacked Jan. 20, Robinson said.

Daughrity, a Gulf War Navy veteran and mail room clerk at the University of San Diego, said he had just deposited his paycheck and withdrawn money from a cash machine in the shopping center when he turned around to find a man behind him, police said.

Daughrity claimed the man, whom he described as a skinhead, asked him the time, then jumped him, police said.

Daughrity said the man was joined by two other skinheads, who beat him and shouted racial epithets before robbing him and fleeing on foot, police said.

Daughrity said that after the attack he implored onlookers and local shopkeepers to help, but was ignored, police said.

When he flagged down a passing squad car and told the officers what had happened, Daughrity reported, they disputed his claim and refused to make a report.

The investigators arrived at their findings by interviewing officers--who said they had not been in the area at the time--and shopkeepers, Robinson said.

Daughrity could face up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for the misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report, Robinson said.