Brooklyn Park | Not in Our Town

Brooklyn Park

Brooklyn Park, MN: On September 23, 2009, 18-year-old Derrick Thomas, a young Minnesota man with mild autism, was riding his bike home when three white men pushed him off his bike and then stripped, beat and robbed him while yelling racial slurs. According to Thomas, the men repeatedly used a racial slur and told him they "hated black people and that they would beat up any black people who walk through the nearby park." When police found the three suspects, they were in the process of assaulting a second black man, 40-year-old Johnney Robinson. The suspects arrested in the case, Anthony Kilpela and Bryan Westerlund, both 21, and Tyler Kai Ketz, 23, were charged with robbing Thomas and the bias-motivated assault of Thomas and Robinson.