Hate crime victim forgives his assailants

Jill Burke photo

Eddie Barr, who was assaulted solely because he is Alaska Native, forgave his attackers in an Anchorage courtroom Thursday.

Story updated @ 5:30 p.m.

The man who in July 2009 was a nameless victim of a predatory attack on the streets of Anchorage emerged in court Thursday as a face and a name with a powerful message for the young duo who sought out to torture him strictly because of his race and solely to entertain themselves.

"I forgive these two young people," Eddie Barr told a federal judge in Anchorage late Wednesday morning. "I hope they learned something from this."

Deanna Scaglione, 21, one of two people accused of attacking Barr in August 2009 on a street outside the same courtroom she was sentenced in, will serve 16 months in jail for her role in the crime prosecutors called outrageous, offensive, mean, reprehensible and hateful. "They were taking this as sport and entertainment. It was shameless," Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Feldis told the judge.

The duo pursued Barr, chosen at random during an outing of "egging Natives," for 10 minutes, a timeframe that must have seemed like an eternity to Barr, who "did nothing but try to walk away," Feldis said.

They chased him, made derogatory remarks, threw a water bottle and eggs at him, kicked and shoved him, and threatened to cut him, beat him with a bat and shoot him with a gun, according to a description of the attack to which both defendants have admitted.

Scaglione filmed the attack on a Flip video camera and posted clips of it to YouTube.

"What makes it worse," Feldis said, "is that there are at least two other victims."

Barr carried the anger, shame and fear of the attack in silence, telling no one. He only learned that someone knew about it when, on his way to the Rescue Mission for breakfast one morning, a police officer approached him and said a security camera had recorded the assault.

Scaglione's defense attorney, Lance Wells, told the judge the incident, though serious, was the result of "two young people making horrifically bad choices about what to do for an evening's entertainment."

While the attack was intentional, they meant no harm, he said.

When given a chance to speak up, Scaglione apologized three times, but never referred to Barr by name. "Once again I would like to apologize to the victim," she told the judge after explaining that she wasn't a bad person, that she had learned from her mistakes, that in the eight months she spent in federal prison awaiting her sentence she had matured and realized it is not the life she wants.

"I know that my decision -- it was stupid. It was very stupid," she said. "I'm sorry."

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Burgess was not persuaded that the attack on Barr was the work of two bored young adults.

"There is something much deeper and flawed that you don't understand how wrong this is," he said. "I don't know what twisted logic allows her to make Native Alaskans the target of her loathing."

"Prejudices are what fools use for reasons," Burgess added, quoting French philosopher François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire.