Another black-on-white hate crime (the true color of crime) that will be forgotten in a week’s time:
Police today said the stabbing death of a white Army soldier allegedly at the hands of a group of African American comrades was not a hate crime – despite witnesses claiming they called him a ‘cracker’ during the confrontation.
Tevin Geike, 20, was left for dead in a parking lot near his base in Lakewood, Washington, in the early hours of Saturday morning and three soldiers have been arrested over the killing.
In the hours after the stabbing, police said they believed the attack was racially motivated because it was claimed some of the assailants – a group of five black men – called Tevin a ‘cracker’, a racist term for a white person.
But Lakewood police officers today said they no longer believed the killing to be a hate crime following the arrests and speaking to everyone they believed were involved.
All the suspects are from Joint Base Lewis-McChord and served in the same combat infantry unit as Tevin.
The accused are Jeremiah Hill, 23 – the alleged murderer – Cedarium Johnson, 21; and Ajoni Runnion-Bareford, 21. Two others are still being sought…
The slaying happened when Tevin and soldier friends Matthew Barnes and Brian Johnson were walking home to Joint Base Lewis-McChord on Saturday morning.
Barnes told KIRO TV that the attackers drove past and one of them in the back shouted ‘something like white and cracker’.
Barnes said he shouted back: ‘So this is how we treat combat veterans now?’
The car turned around and came back and five men got out, surrounding the three friends.
Four then walked away but a fifth walked up to Tevin and ‘appeared to bump’ or ‘bear hug’ him and stabbed him multiple times.
