March 19, 2024

Judge says Iowa beating was racially motivated, ‘vicious’

CEDAR RAPIDS (AP) — An Iowa bar’s surveillance camera captured video of a white felon committing a “vicious attack” on a black man, and the evidence indicates the beating was racially motivated, a judge has ruled.

In a written ruling Monday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jon Scoles ordered that 40-year-old Randy Joe Metcalf of Dubuque remain in custody pending his trial on a federal hate crime charge. Metcalf, who has at least eight prior assault convictions, is “a danger to the community” who could not be trusted to comply with any conditions of release, Scoles said.

Metcalf was arrested last week in the Jan. 12 beating of 31-year-old Lamarr Sandridge at the Northside Bar in Dubuque. Federal prosecutors played clips of surveillance video during a detention hearing Friday that Scoles said captured Metcalf’s “vicious attack on the victim while he lay motionless on the floor.”

The video shows Metcalf kicking and stomping on Sandridge’s head. Metcalf appears to leave the bar, then returns to kick and stomp the victim again, Scoles said. Sandridge was left with several injuries, including a broken right-side orbital bone. Metcalf also assaulted Sandridge’s white female acquaintance who tried to intervene during the beating, fracturing her cheekbone.

Several witnesses told authorities that Metcalf made “racially disparaging comments and racial slurs” in the hours before the beating. He also allegedly displayed a swastika tattooed on his stomach to the bar owner and others, saying, “this is what I am about.”

Those statements “support a finding that the victim was attacked because of his race,” Scoles ruled, calling the evidence strong.

On Tuesday, Scoles granted the government’s motion to seal the video of the beating, which had been entered into the public record Friday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Morfitt argued the video should be sealed “in order to protect the privacy and dignity of the individuals involved, particularly the victim.”