Authorities investigate possible hate crime in West Deer
A West Deer couple face charges of aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation, conspiracy and robbery after police said they lured a Hispanic man from a bar to their home, where he was attacked by four men with swastika and anarchy tattoos yelling racial epithets at him.
George Palmer, 32, and Hope Gorham, 31, both of 5 Oak St., are being held at the Allegheny County Jail on $250,000 bond. They are scheduled to have a preliminary hearing in the case before Magisterial District Judge Tom Swan on May 17.
West Deer police Chief Jonathan Lape said the case is still under investigation, and officers are seeking at least three other men who were allegedly involved in the attack early Wednesday.
Margaret Philbin, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s
office, said “We are aware of the matter ... and the FBI and our office are reviewing it.”
According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, a West Deer patrol officer spotted the alleged victim, Marcus Pope, walking along Oak Street about 1:30 a.m. with no shoes or jacket. As Officer Timothy Burk approached, he saw that Mr. Pope was bleeding from his left eye, and it was swollen. Mr. Pope, who had other injuries all over his face, told him he’d just been jumped.
Mr. Pope recounted to the officer then — and several hours later during a second interview — that he had been at JJ’s Country Tavern in New Kensington that evening when he was approached by a woman at the bar, later identified as Ms. Gorham, who asked if he wanted to party. When he said yes, she told him she would get a ride for him, and he was picked up by two men in a maroon Dodge Charger.
They stopped at a Sheetz store and then went to the house on Oak Street.
Mr. Pope told police he entered through an unlocked door, and when he got inside, a white man approached with a wrench in his hand. A few other men entered, including two with shaved heads, he said. The men yelled at Mr. Pope for being at the house, the complaint said, and called him a racial epithet.
“He stated that he isn’t black and that he is Hispanic but looks black,” the complaint said.
The men yelled at him about having relationships with white women and told him that “[stuff] doesn’t go on out here.”
They told Mr. Pope to empty his pockets, and after he did, the complaint continued, they began striking him in the head with the wrench, shoved him to the ground, kneed him in the back and kicked him in the head and body.
“While they were doing so, two males showed ... their stomachs and Marcus was able to see swastikas on their stomachs and chest. The males were stating ‘this is what we are about,’” Officer Burk wrote.
Mr. Pope attempted to get away, and he heard his attackers say multiple times, “’We should just kill him.”
Police said Mr. Pope broke away from the men and fled to the street, losing his shoes and coat as he fled.
He also told police the men stole his cell phone and ring. Throughout his initial conversation with Officer Burk, the complaint said, Mr. Pope said he was afraid the suspects would find him.
He was taken by ambulance to Allegheny General Hospital.
“It’s serious injury, no doubt,” Chief Lape said.
Officer Burk wrote in the criminal complaint that he was familiar with Palmer, and that he is a “self-proclaimed white supremacist.”
Palmer, who has a lengthy criminal record of mostly property crimes, dating to 2004, was serving a two- to five-year prison sentence with the state Department of Corrections for theft and was paroled on Jan. 31.
After Mr. Pope was taken to the hospital, Officer Burk and another officer went to the Palmer house and knocked on the door. While they spoke to Palmer, they discovered one of Mr. Pope’s shoes in the front yard.
“George continued to state that he knows nothing of any type of incident,” and that he and Ms. Gorham were just about to go to sleep, the complaint said. “He stated that no one is in the house, and that they have been home all night.”
The officers asked permission to enter to search it, but Palmer said no.
“George was also quick to keep on showing us his hands and fists that he had not hit anyone, but we kept advising him that there was a weapon used.”
Palmer told the officers that he doesn’t “fight dirty.”
The officers later obtained a search and arrest warrant, Chief Lape said, but when they returned to the Palmer house, no one else was present.
“Now, we’re just trying to determine who the other individuals were,” the chief said.