Sage Frank and his mother April stand in front of the Shasta Lake City convenience store near their home where swastikas were painted hours after the attack on Frank by an alleged white supremacist. Photo by Marc Dadigan.
The Shasta County District Attorney’s Office has decided to not prosecute Shasta County resident Charles Petrisevac, 36, for alleged hate crimes against Sage Frank, an 18-year-old American Indian.
The district attorney office decision followed a two-week investigation into the incident that occurred on Aug. 23, said Kelly Kafel, senior deputy district attorney.
Kafel told anewscafe that no charges will be filed against Petrisevac nor Frank, who accused the alleged white supremacist of “sucker punching” him and yelling racist slurs at him.
The district attorney’s office received the case with instructions to consider potential charges against both Frank and Petrisevac.
“We performed a complete review of all the documents,” Kafel said.
She added that for the crime to fit the legal hate-crime definition, it must be motivated by race, or it is not considered a civil rights violation.
“There has to be a specific intent to violate the victim’s civil rights,” Kafel said.
“Our job is to ferret out the truth, even if it doesn’t follow popular opinion.”
Bill Siemer grew up on a farm in Lassen County, played basketball at Shasta JC, went to Vietnam, became a newspaper reporter and then a lawyer and now considers himself a champion of the story that needs to be told. He lives on the bank of the river and takes pictures.
