MARTINEZ — Moments before they were sentenced to prison for beating and stabbing a Sikh man while cutting off his hair, two Texas residents heard from their victim.
Maan Singh Khalsa, 41, stood at a podium a few feet away from his attackers, Colton Leblanc and Chase Little, who listened from inside a courthouse bullpen. Khalsa spoke of the physical and emotional trauma he suffered.
The Richmond resident was attacked by three men at a Richmond intersection on Sept. 25.
Khalsa was stabbed in the hand so deeply that his finger needed to be amputated, and his eye was swollen shut from the beating. Having his turban yanked off and hair cut was “humiliating,” he said. Later, he encouraged his attackers to learn about other cultures.
“I still consider you my brothers as human beings,” Khalsa said. “I hope one day you will consider me your brother too.”
Leblanc and Little, who are cousins, pleaded no contest Thursday to charges of felony assault with a hate crime enhancement, each receiving a sentence of three years in state prison as part of a plea deal. The hearing brings to a close a case that received national attention, both due to the brutal nature of the attack and the fact that prosecutors said from the beginning that Khalsa had been targeted because of his faith; authorities have speculated the two mistook his turban as a sign that he was a Muslim.
“It will take many years, maybe the rest of my life, to heal from this attack,” Khalsa said. “Just recognizing it as a hate crime is the first step in healing for me.”
Though sentenced to three years, Little and Leblanc could be released in about 18 months with good behavior. Both were given about 50 days credit for time served. They did not speak, other than saying “yes, your honor” when asked if they accepted the terms of the plea.
Ironically, the day Khalsa was attacked, he had spent the day helping raise money for a local nonprofit that educates the public about the Sikh faith, according to testimony. When he stopped at a traffic light, he felt a thud, and turned to look. Someone in a pickup truck next to him had thrown an empty beer can into his car.
Khalsa testified that he got out of his car and tossed the can back, telling the car’s occupants, “I think you forgot something.” Little became enraged and started screaming at Khalsa through an open window while the car’s other occupants held him back, one of the truck’s occupants testified.
After following him to another intersection, Little and Leblanc punched him 10-15 times through an open window, pulled his hair out of the car, and began to hack at it with a knife while screaming “Cut his (expletive) hair,” Khalsa testified at the preliminary hearing. When he put his hand out to stop them, his pinky finger was cut so badly that doctors were forced to amputate the digit.
The attack sparked national outrage, but also greatly affected the local Sikh community, said Satinder Malhi, a Sikh parishioner who attended Thursday’s hearing.
“This has also impacted me personally; I’m a proud practicing member of the Sikh faith and if this could happen to him it could happen to me,” Malhi said. “Unfortunately, hate crimes are nothing new to the Sikh-American community.”
Sikh-Americans often are inadvertent victims of Islamophobia, and the first homicidal hate crime that followed the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks targeted a Sikh man. A group called the Sikh Coalition, which rallied around Khalsa’s case, estimates that about 99 percent of U.S. residents who wear turbans in public are Sikh.
“Whether they were mistaken about his nationality or religion is immaterial. They perceived him as being non-Western, of a different faith, and therefore continued to target him in a far more aggressive, egregious fashion than what is already considered reprehensible conduct,” prosecutor Simon O’Connell said.
