Man accused of slashing at stranger while yelling racial slurs in CA gets prison time
A stranger confronted a Black man in a California crosswalk, yelling racial slurs at him, and then wielded a knife and swung it at him, officials say.
Ole Hougen, 45, was sentenced to more than six years in prison on a hate crime charge after the July 2020 incident in Santa Cruz, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release on Dec. 3.
It wasn’t the first time Hougen, who is white, made racist or violent threats, an FBI special agent said in the criminal complaint.
He was on probation in 2018 racially motivated assault on another Black man, the news release states. He was also involved in two other similar incidents in 2014 and another in 2018, the criminal complaint says.
“Racially motivated crimes have no place in our society. This defendant has attacked at least four people because they are Black, and for his most recent racially motivated attack of a Black man the defendant has been convicted,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in the release.
Hougen’s defense attorneys did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment.
After Hougen yelled at the Black man in Santa Cruz, he pulled out a 9-inch knife and jabbed the weapon at the stranger about 10 times as he tried to stab him in the chest, stomach and face, court documents say.
Hougen called the man a racial slur several times while he slashed the knife at him, the documents say.
When police arrested him, he also called the officer racial slurs, the document states. Then in jail he told the staff he only wanted a “white person to help” him, authorities said in the complaint.
“Ole Hougen’s violent assault didn’t just attack an individual, he attacked the entire community associated with the victim,” said Acting Assistant Director Jay Greenberg of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. “All crime is unacceptable, but hate crimes are particularly cruel. They strike at an unchangeable, fundamental and defining part of a victim’s identity. In this way, they attack everyone who identifies with this victim.”
Hougen will serve 82 months in prison along with three years of supervised release.
This story was originally published December 3, 2021 at 1:15 PM with the headline "Man accused of slashing at stranger while yelling racial slurs in CA gets prison time."
