"The driver and I got out of the cab to confront the teenagers. As the driver walked by the trunk of the car, he was sucker-punched from the back. I turned my head in disbelief, wanting to go to the driver's assistance when I felt a second, harder punch strike me across the face," he continued.
"The driver popped open his trunk and pulled out a crowbar. We were in the heart of Philadelphia, a major metropolis, yet the intersection of 15th and Chestnut Streets resembled the closest thing I could imagine to a war zone," Goldman wrote.
Goldman fled the scene and did not call police.
Stephanie Farr's initial coverage of the incident in the Daily News reported that the teens were "spouting racial slurs" at the time of the altercation. But a few days later came the announcement from the District Attorney's Office that there would be no prosecution for a hate crime because the racial epithets didn't rise to the level of ethnic intimidation, the formal name for the charge in Pennsylvania. The defendants are being charged with two counts of aggravated assault, a felony of the first degree.
While some have been quick to suggest a reluctance on the part of the D.A. to prosecute African Americans for hate crimes, the data suggest otherwise. The District Attorney's Office has filed hate-crime charges 23 times since Jan. 3, 2011. In four of those instances, the defendants were African American or otherwise non-Caucasian. Goldman's case could become No. 24 if further investigation confirms speculation that the defendants shouted "white motherf-" during the attack.
Just last year, the state Supreme Court ruled that it was unnecessary for racial animus to be the sole, or even primary, factor in filing hate-crime charges. That case involved a defendant named Daniel Sinnott, who hurled anti-Hispanic epithets and a "motherf-" while charging at his employer's daughter with an electric drill and hammer.
