Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Pat Kasthurirangaian

Pat Kasthurirangaian, the man dragged from his car and severely beaten by thugs after Milwaukee's Juneteenth celebration, speaks.

MILWAUKEE -- Pat Kasthurirangaian said he doesn't know the people who pulled him from his car and brutally beat him. He doesn't know why they did it. He has some serious injuries after a senseless beating that took place as people left Tuesday's Juneteenth celebration.

..."They broke my nose, they busted my lip in many places and I have a fractured eye socket," Kasthurirangaian said.

Kasthurirangaian says he was driving to the grocery store he owns about 40 minutes after the celebration officially ended. Many people had remained near the festival site after it ended at 6 p.m. A large group of young people walking in the middle of the street at 1st and Burleigh jumped on cars and broke windows.

"It all happened so fast. They started banging on the car. I don't know exactly now, but I was trying to dial 911 on my cell phone. They managed to open the door and pull the cell phone out of my hand," Kasthurirangaian said.

Finally, we know the name and the face of the victim.

He's not black, but he was kicked in the face by a black man.

Is Kasthurirangaian the victim of a hate crime?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad that this guy is alive. Read the following link - http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/20/crash.assault.ap/index.html. Sounds like Juneteenth crowd was behind beating a man to death in a different city in Texas.

Milwaukee was lucky this time. But, how long?

Mary said...

The way that guy kicked Kasthurirangaian in the face was savage, pure and simple.

Kasthurirangaian could have suffered even more severe injuries than he did. He could have ended up paralyzed.

He, too, could have been killed.

It's pretty bad to think of having a fractured eye socket, broken nose, and busted lip as being lucky.

Anonymous said...

I heard he got beaten up because he looked like an "A-rab". In illiterate people language, that refers to immigrants from India. If this was bunch of non-black people beating up a black man, this would have been a huge story and people would have crying about racism.