A 19-year-old whose friend faces assault and hate crime counts after police said he punched a gay teenager in Sandy has now been charged with a hate crime himself after he allegedly vandalized the victim’s home Saturday, hours after the assault suspect was booked into juvenile detention.
The suspected vandal has been charged in 3rd District Court with retaliation against a witness, a third-degree felony; and criminal mischief, a class A misdemeanor. Both charges include hate crime enhancements.
On July 30, two Sandy teenagers, Christian Peacock and Jacob Metcalf, were hugging outside Peacock’s Sandy home when a car drove by and the occupants yelled homophobic slurs at them, according to police. The car returned about 45 minutes later, when several occupants got out and yelled more homophobic slurs.
A 17-year-old taunted the couple and eventually hit Peacock in the head, sending him to the hospital to be treated for a concussion and brain swelling. Metcalf later opened up to The Salt Lake Tribune about the experience, recounting, “There were five people there against just me and my boyfriend.”
According to police, new surveillance footage from the same neighborhood on Saturday shows the suspected vandal outside the victim’s home. Pride flags were “strewn about” the front yard and the street, police said, and at least one flagpole was broken.
A witness identified the 19-year-old as one of the occupants of the car during the July 30 assault.
The 19-year-old suspect “ripped down the pride flags” 12 hours after his 17-year-old friend was booked into juvenile detention on Friday in connection with the July 30 assault, charging documents state, noting that the suspected vandal’s “only clear purpose” was to “further intimidate and harass” the victim’s family.
Both the teenage victim and his sister have been “struggling with anxiety and fear since the assault on July 30, 2022,” charging documents note, “and with the continued intimidation they felt by the damage to their flags.”
The sister had tracked down the 17-year-old assault suspect through social media, and persuaded him to come to her home and apologize to her brother. She notified police, and and when the suspect arrived at the family’s home, he was arrested.
The suspected vandal has been booked into the Salt Lake County jail, where he is being held without bail after prosecutors argued that “there is clear and convincing evidence” that he “would constitute a substantial danger” to the victim and his family if he were to be released.
from The Salt Lake Tribune https://ift.tt/YjbPCV5
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