Pair face new trial in beating of black state trooper

Associated Press

DETROIT — Two white men accused of beating a black state trooper for dancing with a white woman at a bar face a second trial today in an overwhelmingly white county that has long had a racist reputation.

Local leaders say they would like nothing better than ridding themselves of the racist image that has clung to once-rural Livingston County, now a fast-growing part of suburban Detroit’s outer fringe.

The case stems from an attack last April on off-duty Trooper Arthur Williams III on the dance floor of the Metropolis Bar &Grill in Brighton. Williams, 33, was dancing with former Livingston County Assistant Prosecutor Paulina Muzzin.

Authorities said two cousins, angry at seeing a black man dancing with a white woman, shouted racial slurs, punched Williams and smashed his face with a bottle. He underwent surgery to rebuild an eye socket.

Jasen Barker, 22, and Travis Sales, 21, were jailed on ethnic intimidation and assault charges. Their trial in November ended in a deadlocked jury.

The charges against Barker carry up to 12 years, while Sales could get up to six years.

"I am really pleased that our prosecutor is pursuing this," said Howell City Councilman Steve Manor, a retired teacher and co-founder of the racial tolerance group Livingston 2001. "This behavior will not be tolerated."

The defendants’ attorneys declined comment Monday. But at the first trial, the defense argued that the incident was a bar fight that got out of control.

Livingston County’s reputation for racism stems from its overwhelmingly white makeup, as well as from Ku Klux Klan grand dragon Robert Miles, whose farm near Howell was a hotbed of white supremacist activity in the 1970s and ’80s.

Miles was convicted of conspiring to burn school buses during an integration fight in Pontiac and in the tarring and feathering of a high school principal. Miles died in 1992.

No longer a sleepy backwater, Livingston County grew 36 percent during the 1990s to nearly 157,000, according to the 2000 census. But only 722 of its residents — less than half of 1 percent — were black.

Copyright ©2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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