A U.S. district court sentenced two men to three years in jail for gravely beating a Sikh in California and cutting his hair.
Chase B. Little and Colton T. Leblanc from Texas, pleaded no contest to felony assault and committing ‘hate crime’ against 42-year-old Maan Singh Khalsa on September 25th last year.
“Both men went out of their way to cut Khalsa’s hair, which he maintained unshorn as part of his Sikh faith, ‘making this so clearly a hate crime’,” said Prosecutor Simon O’Connell of the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office.
Khalsa appeared before district Judge Patrica Scanlon during the hearing in Martinez on Thursday and recalled the details of the incident.
“Cutting a Sikh’s hair is one of the most humiliating things anyone can do to a Sikh. The attackers did not just attack my body, they attacked my dignity, my spirit, my faith, my religion and my entire community,” Khalsa said.
On the night of the attack Khalsa was driving home and stopped at a red signal in Richmod near Berkeley, when a vehicle, with five people in it pulled up next to him.
The men threw beer cans at him. When the light turned green, Khalsa drove off and called 911 as the vehicle followed him.
When Khalsa stopped his car at another red signal, two men got out of the vehicle, ran up to him and repeatedly punched his faced and yelled profanities.
“My attackers hit me with their fists, knocked off my turban, and yelled, ‘Cut his…hair’,” Khalsa said in a statement.
“They yanked my hair through the window and used a knife to saw parts of it.”
Khalsa also sustained a black eye, tooth damage and knife wounds. His little finger was later amputated because of an infection.
Khalsa, who is an IT specialist at the Social Security Administration, migrated from India in 2003 and always considered himself an American “like everyone else.”
“I had never worried about being a victim of prejudice,” Khalsa said.
Prosecutor O’Connell said on Thursday: “That really sent a message to the community to say that this sort of crime will not be tolerated and will be taken seriously.”
He also said that Little and Leblanc had no affiliation with hate groups and had no remorse to their prison sentences.
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