VENTURA : Teen-Ager Charged in Musician’s Stabbing
Prosecutors on Thursday charged a 17-year-old boy with assault with a deadly weapon in connection with a racially motivated stabbing of a reggae musician near the Ventura Pier.
The youth, described by police as a white supremacist, is scheduled to be arraigned today in Ventura County Superior Court.
Kerry Leonard Boles was stabbed in the stomach Monday night after being bombarded with racial epithets. Police arrested the suspect Tuesday night. Authorities say four other teen-agers were also involved in the attack.
Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said in a statement that prosecutors will seek to have the suspect tried as an adult. Prosecutors also charged him with inflicting great bodily injury to Boles, as well as committing a racially motivated crime.
The youth is being held at Juvenile Hall.
Meanwhile, two local clergy members denounced the attack, saying it shows that “senseless bigotry, racism and violence are still all too prominent in our community.”
“We want them to know they and their ideas of racial superiority are unwelcome in Ventura,” said a statement issued jointly by Rabbi Michael Berk of Temple Beth Torah and Rev. John Baylor of Olivet Baptist Church. “We will not be silent, lest that silence be interpreted either as apathy or passive complicity.”
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