Vengeance for Brandon! Racist Violence in Terre Haute

In the early hours of Feb 17, a typical house party ensued. A little too much alcohol had been drank. Brandon Pettiford was apparently acting pretty drunk and his friend Jessie Stout decided to give him a ride home. Brandon gets blasted in the face on his way out. It should have ended there, but sadistic drunk racist assholes decided to follow them. Behaving as typical white supremacist cowards they chased down Jessie in their car, they assaulted her, and they nearly killed Brandon because he had the audacity to dance and flirt with a white girl earlier in the evening.

Here’s Jessie Stout’s account of the attack:

It started at the party we were at. It had dwindled down to about a hand full of people. As I’m sitting enjoying just spending time with what I thought were friends, I hear people getting angry, annoyed that my friend was dancing up on girls and hitting on them, but for Christ sakes he’s a boy and a single boy so of course he’s going to be doing so. I hear two or three people discussing how annoying the “Nigger that can’t take a hint” is being. As this is being discussed I’m looking around at all of our supposed friends waiting for someone other than me to stand up for him and explain how drunk he was. Nobody did.

So since nobody would offer to give him a ride home I did, as I would’ve done for any of my friends at that party who were too intoxicated to take care of them self. As I go to walk out the door to take Brandon home some guy hits my friend. Everyone’s just standing there with stupid looks on their face. So I did what any honest human being would do and helped him up and forced him to leave the house with me.

As we walk out Brandon falls down a hill, and as shaken up as I already am with anger from the pure ignorance that was already demonstrated for no reason I support him as we walk to my car. As I am driving down the road to leave it realize I have no idea to get back home without GPS. I’m freaking out because my friends eye was gashed open and bleeding, so I call another friend to talk to calm down. The whole time my friend is asking me “what did I do?” and I said “you didn’t do anything buddy.” by that time I noticed head light behind me. I didn’t think anything of it, thinking maybe these are some people leaving the party and are following me out cuz they’re lost too.

The next thing I know they speed past me, and start break checking me. So I slow down and let them speed off cuz i wasn’t dealing with that shit. As I pull up to the stop sign there are three people standing in the street and the same vehicle break checking me was parked off to the side. By that time I had had enough, either they were going to move their asses or I was going to run them over with no hesitation. As I speed by a guy with marker on his face punches my back Window, and for those of you that don’t know my car is my baby, you hit it and I’m one pissed off bitch. So I speed off.

Next thing I noticed as I’m screaming into the phone to another friend that there were crazy people chasing me, here comes this truck up beside me, so I keep the same speed trying to keep them from passing me again, then decided you know what Fuck it, and stomped on the breaks, we skidded for about a minute and I throw it into reverse to get away. The truck follows suit and chases me in reverse for about two minutes.

So I throw it in drive and drive around them while they were at a stand still. I start to go around a curve and see the truck taking a short cut through the the corn field and totally block off the road with thier extended cab truck. At this point I have had enough. I look at my friend and say, “I’m locking the doors and when I get out I’m locking my door behind me, don’t you get out of this car for any reason do you understand me.”

I throw my car in park as we’re still moving, get out, lock my door behind me and shut it. By this time the guy with marker on his face was standing shirtless in the middle of the street. I walk straight up to him thinking I’m a woman he wouldn’t dare hit me, and ask him “what in the Fuck do you want asshole!” and I swear it was slow motion as I watched his fist blast me in the jaw, as he continued to hit me he starts to drag me by my hair into the field, and out of the corner of my eye I see Brandon cracked the door open to come help me.

Next he motioned to his girlfriend to exit the vehicle, and with my head held by my hair in his hands he makes sure I’m looking at her as she walks up and says “don’t you ever put you hands on my fucking man.” at this point it’s on she’s got me by the hair I got a hold of her nappy ass scalp and start blasting her in the head. This continued for about 4 or 5 minutes. Finally I gave up and she let me loose.

As I’m looking up praying to God that I wasn’t going to die blind as a bat because they shattered my glasses I see all three silhouetted around my friend stomping on his face and beating him with every inch of his life. Then they turned around without a word and drove off. 

All I could do was scream. I tried not too to keep my friend calm, but I couldn’t help it. I saw him trying to get off the ground and my instincts kicked in I told him, “Buddy you can move, ok? I dunno how bad you are just in case your neck is broken.” I feel how cold he is and scrambled to the car grab my phone and pop the trunk to see if I had any blankets to wrap him in. I dial 911 and find two towels in my trunk and drape them over him. The dispatcher kept asking me where are you ma’am where are you and I couldn’t see there were no signs, no cars, no houses, no lights nothing.

And even if there were a car to pull up I was terrified to flag anyone down in fear that it would be them coming back for us. Luckily another one of my friends shows up and tell the police exactly where we were. And all I could think at that exact moment was i shouldn’t have been here. I should very been home with my son and husband.”

White supremacist scum.

Brandon is currently listed in good condition and is respected to recover. His attackers meanwhile are being charged with one felony each and held on $50,000 bail. Compare this to the Tinley Park Five who were charged with thirty-seven felonies and $250,000 bail each despite the fact that their were no serious injuries and the victims were violent white supremacists with records.

Jessie and Brandon’s friends and family are pursuing justice through the courts, and though we at HARM have very little use for courts, jails, or the facade of criminal justice… We fully stand behind Jessie and Brandon’s choice to handle this situation however they deem fit. That said, we’re really hoping someone in the THC Jail shanks these pieces of shit before they get to court. But anyhow, here’s a petition to get the Department of Justice to investigate the matter as a hate crime.

Terre Haute has some serious problems with white supremacy that must be dealt with. This is no isolated incident. We at HARM have received multiple reports about klan activity and especially of white supremacist recruiting at the high schools. Hopefully this event will show people that white supremacy produces real victims and must be dealt with as an actual threat rather than an unpleasant ideology with no consequences.

Feel better fast Brandon!

(Updated 2/20/13 – New petition. Switched out local petition with petition to White House asking that DOJ investigate the assault.