Two Washington state men pleaded guilty to chasing and attacking a Black man riding a BMW, The Seattle Times reported.
On Monday (Oct. 26), Eric Dean Wise and Travis Bryan Phillips chased the driver for 10 miles then beat him, and called him racial slurs before leaving his body in a pool of blood, and running off with his wallet and shoes.
Cops were notified of the assault after a witness overheard the men shouting aloud the insults and observed the victim getting hit. According to the bystander, the men struck the Black man about 15 times, dragged him out of his car, slammed his face on the ground and jolted him a few times.
When the officers reported to the scene, they noticed a silver sedan with rear-end damage run a stop sign and pulled the car over. Phillips and Wise — who were in the vehicle with blood on their hands — admitted they’d just attacked a man for bumping into their car and directed the cops to his body which was laying on the ground next to his BMW.
The cops found the Black man laying in the pool of blood with his eyes swollen shut and “severe facial injuries.” He was brought to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle where he was treated. According to court papers, the victim sustained injuries that “required hospitalization” after the attackers “beat him to a bloody pulp.” The documents also mentioned “Phillips proudly proclaimed he did these crimes because the victim was a Black man.”
“The defendants’ actions in this case are stomach churning and heinous,” prosecutors wrote. “This was a brutal hate crime. These defendants are a threat to our community.”
Phillips and Wise initially escaped, but were later arrested. They are being held at Kings County Jail where they await trial on hate crime and first-degree robbery charges. They are scheduled to be arraigned on Nov. 9.