San Jose State Students Suspended Over Hate Crime Against Roommate

Update: San Jose State University says it has suspended the three students charged with misdemeanor hate crime and battery.

"The university is outraged and saddened. This is very inconsistent with our history," said Pat Lopes Harris, San Jose State University's media relations director.

Harris says that Logan Beaschler, 18, Joseph Bomgardner, 19, and Colin Warren, 18, will be asked to leave university housing and will be unable to attend classes.

"The students will have the opportunity to have their concerns heard," Harris said. "We will continue to talk to witnesses, the victim, the suspects in this case. There will be a finding, and if the students disagree with this finding they are entitled to a hearing."

The three allegedly confined their black roommate with a bike lock and subjected him to racial taunts.

Harris pointed out that SJSU has more students from minority backgrounds than majority, "so it is surprising, it is saddening, and it is causing us to dig deep and reexamine."

Original post:

SAN JOSE (BCN and KQED) Three San Jose State University students were charged Wednesday with misdemeanor hate crime and battery after allegedly confining their black roommate with a bike lock and subjecting him to racial taunts, a prosecutor said.

The men are Logan Beaschler, 18, of Bakersfield; Joseph Bomgardner, 19, of Clovis; and Colin Warren, 18, of Woodacre (Marin County).

They each face up to a year in county jail if convicted of the two misdemeanor charges, Deputy District Attorney Erin West said.

Sgt. John Laws, spokesman for the San Jose State University police, said that after an investigation of a report they received on Oct. 14, the incidents "appear to meet the criteria for a hate crime."

The incidents reportedly took place in one the high-rise Campus Village Buildings housing university students on campus, Laws said.

Between Aug. 20 and Oct. 13 this year, the three defendants lived with the then 17-year-old black student, also a freshman, and four other white male students in an eight-person suite, West said.

The three defendants allegedly called their black roommate "three-fifths" and "fraction" and put up a Confederate flag in the campus suite they shared, West said.

"Three-fifths" is a reference to the fraction the U.S. Census used to count black slaves in the South in the 18th and early 19th centuries for the purpose of representation in Congress.

In early September, the defendants are alleged to have placed a "U" shaped bike lock on his neck and refused to give him the key for five to 10 minutes before finally letting him out, West said.

On another occasion, they tried to lock him in it again but he resisted and fought them and in the process bruised his lip, which led to the battery charge, West said.

The San Jose Mercury News spoke to the student who is accusing the men of harassment.

The freshman, now 18, said in a brief telephone interview that he's never experienced this kind of mistreatment, even though he was one of only a few black students at his high school in Santa Cruz. This newspaper is not naming him at his parents' request because of the ongoing campus investigation.

"I'm still in shock," he said, noting he tried not to spend much time in the suite and didn't report the situation to campus police in hopes the conduct would stop. "I tried not to dwell on this. But my family is upset and I'm upset."

He told university police he always locked his door at night because he was scared of most of the other students living in the four-bedroom suite. He also didn't feel safe studying in his own room and believes his grades weren't as good as they could be as a result.

Prosecutors decided to file the hate crime charge "because of the bullying, the symbols of hatred in the room, as well as the fact he was the only person of color in the suite and he was the only one targeted," West said.

"They gave him a racial nickname," West said. "They continued to place a Confederate flag in the common area of the suite."

The suite where the eight students lived included a common kitchen, two hallways, two bedrooms and two baths, West said.

At one point, the three students together barricaded the victim in his bedroom with furniture and other items to keep him in, attempted to lock him in a closet and took away his shoes, West said.

Also contributing to the atmosphere of a hate crime, this time anti-Semitism, the defendants kept a photo of Adolf Hitler and placed a swastika on the picture of a person in a magazine, according to West.

They also put a picture of a pentagram on a wall of the suite that the black student, who is a Christian, found offensive, West said.

"He was targeted because he was different, because he was black," West said.

All three of the defendants were 18 during the time of the incidents and the victim was still a juvenile at 17, although he has since turned 18, West said.

The San Jose State Black Student Union is calling for a rally on campus at noon today.