A 15-year-old boy from West Seattle says he was held hostage and beaten for hours, all because of the color of his skin.
Shane McClellan says two men kicked and whipped him at gunpoint – and told him they singled him out because he is white.
Tim McClellan, Shane’s father, says he barely recognized his son after the brutal assault.
“I didn’t know if he was alive or dead,” Tim McClellan said.
The incident happened as Shane McClellan was walking home from a friend’s house Tuesday around 2 a.m.
Shane’s father says two men called to Shane from the top of a staircase near the intersection of 14th Avenue SW and SW Holden Street. The men asked for a light, and when Shane walked over to oblige, they knocked him to the ground and started kicking him.
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Shane told police the suspects said they were whipping and beating him because he is white – and that his ancestors had done the same in the past.
“What he told me, when they were beating him with the belt, they were saying, ‘I don’t like white people,'” says Tim McClellan.
The suspects told Shane they were Bloods gang members and were beating him because he was white.