Black Driver Brutally Beaten, Called Racist Slurs In Washington, Two Charged With Hate Crime

Two white men chased a Black person and brutally beat him up while yelling racist slurs at him in Washington. They were charged with hate crime Tuesday.

The incident happened Monday at around 12.40 a.m. ET in the city of Federal Way. Someone alerted police that two white men were assaulting and threatening to kill a Black man, who was driving a car.

The duo fled the scene after attacking the man but officers tracked them down after some time. Their hands were reportedly covered in blood at the time.

The suspects, identified as Eric Dean Wise, 33, and Travis Bryan Phillips, 34, told authorities that the Black driver had rear-ended their car. After chasing the Black person for about 10 miles, the duo caught up with his vehicle and beat him, local radio station Komo News reported, citing court records.

The suspects left him unconscious on the roadside in a pool of blood. They also stole his wallet. The victim, whose name wasn't revealed, suffered severe facial injuries and his eyes were swollen shut. Paramedics treated him at the scene and transported him to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

"The defendants' actions in this case are stomach-churning and heinous," prosecutors wrote in the court documents, the station reported.

Phillips told deputies that he attacked the Black driver because of his race. "I beat his ass because he was a (expletive)," he told an officer, The Seattle Times reported.

Wise and Phillips were also charged with first-degree robbery, according to a statement from the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. They are both being held in jail on a $500,000 bail bond.

Earlier this month, a white Michigan man was charged with hate crime for attacking a Black teen with a bike lock after yelling "Black lives don't matter." Lee Mouat, 42, of Newport, confronted a group of African-American teenagers on a beach for playing loud music.

Mouat got into a verbal altercation with the teenagers before retrieving the bike lock from his car and striking one of the young boys with it. He was left with a severe facial injury. The victim, identified as Devin Freelon, 18, also suffered a laceration and lost several teeth in the attack.