Civil suit filed against Californian County for ignoring anti-Sikh hate crime

The Sikh Coalition are supporting a civil suit against the Sutter County Sheriff’s Office (California, USA), filed by a Sikh man whose reports of hate crimes were ignored for six months.

Rouble Claire found himself targeted for anti-Sikh hate last year in two separate but related incidents, including one incident which saw “Sand N***er” written in chalk outside his home. Although Claire documented evidence and pointed out the culprit to police, the case remained ignored.

Civil rights and community legal aid advocates The Sikh Coalition pressed on the issue, which eventually prompted the SCSO (Sutter County Sheriff’s Office) to take the case forward to the Sutter County District Attorney’s Office (SCDAO). They were then told that a lack of evidence coupled with the amount of time that had passed meant the SCDAO prosecution could no longer take up the incident as a crime. This response came approximately six months after the incident occurred.

After the civil suit prompted a slew of media coverage on the incident this week, the SCDAO (Sutter County District Attorney’s Office) have since released a statement which claims they were not given “all of the reports and evidence” mentioned in the civil suit, and thus were now open to “a new review and legal analysis” on the incidents. The Sikh Coalition responded by rejecting the claim that there was “new evidence” in the civil suit which was missing from previous reports sent to the SCSO on the crime. However, The Sikh Coalition did still state they are “glad” SCDAO are “reconsidering the case”, adding about the situation Claire has faced, “they can make it right”. The Sikh Coalition remain trying to engage with the prosecution body directly.

Claire, who is 66-years-old and living with his 92-year-old mother for whom he acts as a carer, first found himself targeted whilst doing his groceries.

“Mr. Claire was accosted at a local grocery store,” said Amrith Kaur Aakre, legal director for the Sikh Coalition. “While he was there, a woman he did not recognize started shouting profanities at him and racist slurs. She called him the ‘F-word and then Hindu.’ She threatened to ‘ram’ him with her car, and then got in her car and sped towards him in a parking lot, only swerving away at the last moment.”

According to the Coalition, Claire immediately went inside the store and asked an employee to call 911. But, the Coalition says the police did not respond to the scene. After that, Claire went home.

“Later that same day, Mr. Claire observed another woman who was scrawling the words ‘Sand and then the N-word,’ in chalk in front of his house and in his driveway,” Aakre said. “He called the police, again, to report the second incident. One deputy who responded to the chalking incident used his own water bottle in an attempt to wash away the evidence before taking photos for the office and another advised him not to drive on his own street to avoid any confrontation.”

Both hate crime perpetrators are believed to be linked and local to the area where Claire lives. The Coalition is urging the Sutter County District Attorney’s Office to investigate the case and file criminal charges. That includes charges of criminal threats, assault, assault with a deadly weapon and all applicable charges, including those involving hate and bias.

“I have been subject to threats, harassment, and racial slurs–yet almost a full year later, no one has been held accountable,” Claire said in a statement released by the Sikh Coalition. “For months, after immediately reporting these hateful acts, I sat in silence waiting for action that never came. I did not want to have to take legal action against anyone, but I believe that this failure of justice is unacceptable: No one in our community should have to face this kind of hate and bigotry.”

The Sikh Coalition have opened up a webpage allowing others to join their calls for the SCDAO to act appropriately in response to the hate crimes against Rouble Claire. See that page here.

The Claire family have lived in the area, which has a significant Sikh population, since 1973. In the USA, Sikhs remain among the top five most frequently targeted religious groups in the country for hate crimes and bias incidents, according to the FBI.