Assaulting an off-duty Black police officer and calling him racial slurs, three white construction workers in the St. Louis area are facing multiple criminal charges.
Matthew Devlin, 39, of Fenton, Missouri, was charged with three counts of attack in the first degree, two counts of armed criminal action, and one count of kidnapping in the first degree.
Garrett Gibbs, 23, also from Fenton, and Donnie Hurley Jr., 42, from Arnold, Missouri, are his co-defendants. They are each charged with two counts of first-degree assault, armed criminal action, and first-degree kidnapping.
There is no way to tell if the suspects knew the victim was a police officer since his car was not marked and he was on duty.
The St. Louis County jail is where all three guys are being held.
The bond for Devlin was set at $250,000. Court records show that Gibbs and Hurley were given $100,000 bonds.
There is no indication that they have a lawyer.
According to court papers seen by the Kansas City Star, Devlin told the unknown officer to “go back to the hood with your gold chain” and that he did not “belong down here.”
The accident took place on September 26 at the corner of South Lindbergh Boulevard and Lemay Ferry Road in Clayton, which is not far from St. Louis.
The area was being built on, and St. Louis County Police told news outlets that they think the fight started because people were not sure where the work zone limits were.
The off-duty cop who got into the accident was driving an unmarked car while wearing civilian clothes when he went into a traffic-marked area. But, according to a police spokesman, it was not clear if those cones clearly marked a restricted area.
Devlin got into a fight with the off-duty cop for walking into the work detail, which started the fight. Witnesses say he used a number of racial slurs toward the police officer before they struck him.
According to police reports, Devlin hit the off-duty cop with a hard hat while the other suspects held him down.
Then, Devlin and Gibbs are said to have choked the off-duty cop while he begged them not to while he was choking.
When more police cops arrived, they stopped the fight.
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