UPDATED 8/16: One People’s Project is reporting that Ising has been sentenced to 33 months for his role in the attack.
Philly.com is reporting that two of the boneheads involved in the New Year’s eve 2011 hate crime attack on 2 Egyptian men in New Jersey:
Two members of a New Jersey white supremacist gang — who attacked several men of Egyptian descent and then boasted about the assault on a social media website – were sentenced today after being found guilty on hate crime charges. Michal Gunar, 29, a member of the Aryan Terror Brigade, admitted to his role in the beating in April when he pleaded guilty to an indictment charging him with conspiracy to commit a hate crime assault, as well as the actual commission of a hate crime assault. In U.S. District court today, Judge Joel A. Pisano sentenced Gunar to 33 months in federal prison. Kyle Powell, 24, of West Collingswood, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit a hate crime assault. Judge Pisano sentenced Powell to 15 months. According to court documents, Gunar attended a New Year’s Eve “meet and greet” for white supremacists at the home of Christopher Ising, 31, in East Brunswick on Dec. 31, 2011. Pumped up on alcohol and white supremacist music, Gunar, Powell, Ising, and up to five others drove to a Sayreville apartment complex to “hunt down some sand n——,” Gunar later wrote. The skinheads found their prey in a parking lot. Ising, carrying brass knuckles, and Gunar, brandishing a knife, pulled a man identified as M.H. out of a car. When the victim’s friend, R.M., rushed to his aid, the skinheads attacked him while shouting anti-Arab slurs, prosecutors said. The white supremacists fled to Ising’s home after the beatings. Gunar posted a picture of a bloodied pair of pants to a social media site and, about a week later, he trumpeted his involvement with the beating on that same website, according to the indictment. ” …(W)e went to hunt down some sand n——, it was me and my other bro on like 6 or eight and we whooped them…” Gunar wrote. Ising, a purported member of a white supremacist group known as the “Atlantic City Skins,” pleaded guilty to hate crime charges and will be sentenced on Aug. 9.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/White_supremacists_sentenced_for_NJ_attacks.html#Gd5pfUYvKTZQp7se.99
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/White_supremacists_sentenced_for_NJ_attacks.html#Gd5pfUYvKTZQp7se.99
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While we take some small pleasure in these boneheads being given some semblance of payback, this is not a victory for anti fascism. There are, however, several lessons to be gleaned from this case.
The first is that the state has no interest in stopping fascism. If jail sentences are to be indicative of the state’s sympathies, consider this: These two boneheads were given combined sentences of 39 Months (for FEDERAL hate crime charges), of which they will serve considerably less. Compare that with The Tinley Park Five: the two SHORTEST sentences given amount to 84 months (for STATE assault charges) for smashing fascism. The longest sentence given, to Jason Sutherland, is twice the combined sentence for both Nazis. That, along with the reality that serving state time is almost always shittier than serving federal time, and the intent of those in power to repress anti-fascism while coddling Neo-Nazis and far-right nationalists becomes clear.
The second lesson is just how dishonest and cowardly these boneheads really are. Upwards of 8 of them attacked two men without provocation for being Arab, and Gunar had the nerve to reverse the numbers and claim that he and his “bro” had beaten a larger group of men “6 or 8” men. Even their fellow racists must be disgusted by them. We certainly are.
We will continue to follow this story as it develops, including the sentencing of Ising.
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Philly Antifa