Oregon Daily
Tuesday, August 4, 1992Authorities believe weekend assaults motivated by race
-Police have no suspects in attack that sent three men to a local hospitalBy Rene De Cair
Emerald Associate EditorThree men were attacked and beaten early Friday morning in the west University neighborhood.
Police have labeled it a bias crime because of comments made by the attackers.
Two of the white students involved allege were assaulted by about 12 black men around 1:30 a.m. near 16th Avenue and Alder Street.
Eugene police department officer Jenna-Knight said police reports didn’t mention clothing or anything that would suggest the group belonged to an organized gang.
Police are continuing the investigation.
Knight said because police haven’t “found any suspects, we don’t know what their thoughts were.”
Two victims, Jordan Jason Blair, 21, and Tei Allen Gordon, 22, sustained cuts and bruises. They were treated at Sacred Heart Hospital and released.
Another unidentified man underwent surgery, Gordon said, for injuries sustained to his head.
“It’s hard to know what caused the incident,” Knight said.
Knight said that a fourth white male reported being beaten by a group of black men earlier in the evening. Police believe the two attacks may have been by the same people.
Gordon said he and three white friends were walking home from a campus bar about 1:30 a.m. when two black men walking behind them started yelling racially charged comments.
“Something to the effect of, “Yeah, 200 to 300 years of oppression against us blacks and, it’s our turn,” Gordon said. Then, “You’ll see how it feels.”
It’s kind of funny,” he said, “because I’m Asian-American myself.” But he said they avoided a confrontation by talking to the men making the comments.
“We basically said we don’t want any problem with you,” Gordon said, “So we shook hands. They went their own way.”
A few minutes later, he said, he and Blair look down a street and saw about 12 black men hitting another male.
“They were punching, kicking and jumping on his head,” he said.
Gordon said he and Blair went down to see if they might be able to calm things down, but before they could say anything, they were attacked.
Gordon said he didn’t see the two men from the first incident in the crowd. But, he added, he was preoccupied with defending himself.
Blair and the unidentified man were knocked unconscious, Gordon said. The attackers fled when bystanders gathered around, he said.
Two onlookers took Blair, Gordon and the third man to Sacred Heart Hospital.
“What really gets me is that we’re not prejudiced,” Gordon said. “They were just out to beat up anybody that was white, I can’t imagine the hatred that must be felt.”
The Register Guard
Race hate may be cause of Eugene street battle
Eugene police say they are investigating whether racial harassment sparked a street fight early Friday morning that sent four young men to the hospital with minor injuries.
No one had been arrested Friday in connection with the fight, to which police responded at 2:20 a.m. at 15th Avenue and Alder Street.
Two of the people injured, who are white, told police that they were walking home when a group of black males confronted them and yelled racial obscenities.
The men who reported the incident said no one began physically fighting at that time. A few minutes later, however, the men said they saw a fight in progress involving nine to 12 black males. They said the group of men was jumping on and kicking a white man.
When the two men ran to help the victim, the group began assaulting them, according to the police report. Police later located a fourth victim who said he also was assaulted by a large group of males.
The suspects fled before police arrived. In a news release, police listed the suspects as nine to 12 black males and the victims as four white males ages 20 to 22.
Oregon Daily Emerald, Eugene Oregon,
Thursday, October 31, 1991Maze o’ bikes
Tei Gordon retrieves his bicycle from a plethora of velocipedes in front of Condon Hall
Photo by Andre Ranieri
