2 Charged With Hate Crime in Assault on Teen; 1 Arrested

Two men who were questioned and released by Seattle police after a West Seattle teen was beaten in a racially charged attack have been charged in connection with the May 25 assault. One of the men was arrested Tuesday evening.

DNA recently linked Ahmed Mohamed and Jonathan Baquiring to the attack in which a 16-year-old boy was robbed, taunted with racial insults, burned with a lit cigarette and punched repeatedly. Mohamed, 22, and Baquiring, 21, each were charged Monday with first-degree robbery and malicious harassment, the state’s hate-crime statute.

Baquiring was booked into the King County Jail just after 6 p.m. Tuesday, according to the booking register. His bail is set at $500,000.

Seattle police are still searching for Mohamed.

King County Deputy Prosecutor Samantha Kanner will also seek to have Mohamed held on $500,000 bail once he is arrested, according to charging papers.

The victim, Shane McClellan, said he was walking home around 2 a.m. when two men, whom he described as black and Filipino, asked him for a light.

He said the two men then robbed him and beat him for four hours, whipping him with his own belt while saying things like, “How do you like it, white boy?” and “This is for enslaving our people,” according to the police report.

McClellan, who is white, said the two men also poured Four Loko energy beer on him, burned him with a cigarette and urinated on him, police said.

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