A federal grand jury has indicted a Massachusetts man accused in a racist attack late last year on a hate crime charge.
The office of U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said Wednesday that 77-year-old John Sullivan had been charged with violating the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act on Dec. 2, when he is accused of intentionally hitting an Asian man with his vehicle and yelling at him to “go back to China.”
The victim and his sister, Desiree Thien, were leaving the post office on Washington Street with Thien’s three children at the time of the attack. She said in December that her brother had suffered a fractured shoulder, torn ligaments and a concussion.
“He looked at our family, and then he told us to go back to China,” Thien said. “And then he said to us, he’s going into the post office, ‘When I come back out in five minutes, if you’re still here, I’m going to kill all of you.'”
A 77-year-old man is accused of hitting another man twice with his vehicle and yelling at the victim to “go back to China.”
Sullivan is accused of driving around 50 yards with Thien’s brother on the hood of the car, before abruptly stopping, which allowed him to get off the hood.
“Then he accelerated on the gas again, which hit my brother and sent him flying into the construction ditch nearby,” Thien said.
The victim told police he hit a pipe at the bottom of the ditch, which was 10-15 feet deep.
Sullivan allegedly drove off, being followed by a witness to Braintree, where he was involved in a crash before being arrested.
Following a dangerousness hearing after the attack, Sullivan was released on home confinement.
“Hate has no place here in Massachusetts. As this case demonstrates, we will aggressively prosecute hate crimes and other civil-rights offenses committed because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any individual or group,” Rollins said in a statement Wednesday. “Our thoughts are with the…
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