An alleged Ku Klux Klan member, who was accused of shooting his daughter’s Black boyfriend, has been released from jail on $500 bail, according to Wavy 10. Patrick Fonatine Creath Jr. was charged with malicious wounding and the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony from the incident which took place in June. The daughter’s boyfriend was seriously injured, but survived.
On June 26, he was released from the Virginia Beach Correctional Center. He has to appear in court Virginia Beach General District Court on Aug. 21. After the shooting, Creath told authorities he got into an argument with the daughter’s boyfriend. He claims the boyfriend threatened him multiple times and pointed a gun at him and his daughter. Creath then says he shot at the victim’s car multiple times “in defense of himself and his daughter,” according to court documents.
“Mr. Creath remained on scene of the shooting and was in possession of the firearm that he used at the time of police arrival. Regarding to the investigation as a whole, another firearm was in fact recovered, however, as this investigation is still ongoing, we cannot comment where it was recovered, or who it belonged to at this point. Additional information will be released as it becomes available,” Virginia Beach Police Officer Linda Kuehn told the outlet via email.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump took to Twitter to call out the justice system that is unfair towards Black people. “This is Patrick Creath Jr., a known member of the KKK. He shot his daughter’s Black boyfriend 3 times — trying to KILL him by spraying his car with bullets on June 19, 2020. Thankfully, the young man survived, but Creath is free on only $500 bail for a ‘malicious wounding’ charge!”
Crump continued, “When I talk about two justice systems in America — one for Blacks and one for Whites … THIS is what I’m talking about. Our nation’s problems are due to more than a few bad apples. We DEMAND systemic change now!”
A change.org petition has been started to upgrade the charges to a federal hate crime. Check out Crump’s tweets below.