The Black man who was shoved and assaulted by a white nationalist group in downtown Boston on Fourth of July weekend gained practically $2.8 million in damages towards the group, Patriot Entrance.
Charles Murrell III, a musician and instructor, sued Patriot Entrance in August 2023 in federal court docket. The lawsuit focused each the group itself in addition to its Texas-based chief Thomas Rosseau and the members of the group who marched by way of Boston that weekend. These members are named “John Does 1-99” within the swimsuit.
“Mr. Murrell deeply appreciates the court’s decision,” his attorneys wrote in a press release shared with the Herald. “Mr. Murrell brought this lawsuit because he hoped to give individuals like his students ‘the courage and motivation and inspiration to push through and find accountability’ against those who commit acts rooted in hate.
“The ruling does just that. It makes clear that racially motivated attacks like the ones that defendants Patriot Front and Thomas Rousseau perpetrated against Mr. Murrell on July 2, 2022 are a direct violation of the rights guaranteed to all Americans by the United States Constitution,” the assertion continued. “And the court’s nearly $3 million award – which includes $2 million in punitive damages – sends an unequivocal message that such behavior is not tolerated in the United States, and that those who engage in such un-American conduct will be held accountable.”
Patriot Entrance on July 2, 2022, “conducted an unpermitted ‘flash march’ through Boston, Massachusetts, to promote a white supremacist agenda,” U.S. District Court docket Choose Indira Talwani summarized in her order this week.
“Seizing control of Boston’s public sidewalks while wearing face coverings and carrying shields, Patriot Front members shoved Plaintiff Charles Murrell, a Black musician who was walking on the sidewalk, up against a light post and into a busy street,” she continued in regards to the violent conflict first reported by the Herald.
Talwani awarded Murrell $755,000 in damages for his “physical and psychological injuries, pain and suffering, lost wages, and future earnings,” $2 million in punitive damages and “reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs in an amount to be determined.”
The lawsuit, which alleged 5 counts towards the group, had a gradual begin as Murrell’s attorneys had appreciable problem serving Rousseau with court docket papers, because the Herald reported on the time. Lastly, the attorneys had been allowed to serve the group by electronic mail or by messaging the group’s social media accounts.
Murrell’s attorneys lastly served Patriot Entrance by way of electronic mail on Nov. 10, 2023, and by the group’s Telegram account three days later in response to court docket data. Rousseau was personally served at McLennan County Jail in Waco, Texas, in February 2024.
The Herald reported in actual time the Patriot Entrance’s march on Boston, starting shortly after police scanner chatter got here in at round 12:30 p.m. on July 2, 2022, saying {that a} group had parked a rental truck within the space of Haymarket MBTA station and offloaded a lot of shields and flags, which had been then carried by the roughly 100 members of the group.
Quickly, a Herald photographer within the space noticed the group and captured them marching by way of town with flags that included an upside-down American flag, in addition to U.S. flags for under the unique 13 U.S. colonies. Some flags additionally featured a stylized model of the image that represented Benito Mussolini’s Nationwide Fascist Get together.
The group reached the Boston Public Library the place Rousseau then grabbed a bullhorn and gave a speech.
“If you truly wish for safety, you will have it. But you can take nothing else with you,” he stated then. “Not your home, not your family, not your liberty. There you will be alone with your safety in a rotted world.”
It was round this time that Patriot Entrance members bumped into Murrell.
Murrell stated he was knocked to the bottom and assaulted after taking out his telephone on Dartmouth Avenue, in response to BPD chief spokesman Sgt. Detective John Boyle. Murrell suffered lacerations to his proper ring finger, head and eyebrow.
Murrell returned to the world days later together with a few of the metropolis’s Black leaders to name for a renewed dedication to defending “our multiracial democracy,” the Herald reported.
Initially Revealed:
