STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) — Police are charging a Stamford man with assault and a hate crime for attacking another city resident in a park where protesters camped for a week demanding changes in the city’s police department.
Andre Futrell, 34, was at the camp of protesters in the evening on July 15, and was charged with second-degree assault, intimidation based on bigotry or bias and third-degree strangulation on Tuesday, police said.
Another Stamford resident was walking by that night and told police he started taking pictures of the camp because he didn’t know what was going on, the Stamford Advocate reported.
The alleged victim, who is not named by the newspaper, says he argued with the protesters who told him to leave.
A man, who police have identified as Futrell, threatened the resident, who is Korean, and said he would “bomb him like Pearl Harbor.”
Futrell then put the man into a chokehold, wrestled him to the ground, got up, kicked him in the ribs and punched him in the face, prosecutors said.
A public defender for Futrell declined to comment on the case Tuesday.
In a statement to the newspaper, the organizers of the protest camp said Futrell was not a member of their group.
The protesters at the park were demanding more information about the death of Steven Barrier, a 23-year-old Stamford man who died in police custody last year and a reduction in the city’s police budget, the newspaper reported.
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