UPDATED July 18
A Southeast Portland man was found guilty Wednesday of two hate crimes after calling two underage African American boys a racist slur and threatening them with a knife late last year.
Michael Amatullo, 61, was charged with menacing, unlawful use of a weapon and second-degree intimidation in the encounter at his apartment complex on Dec. 18.
Amatullo’s 7-year-old neighbor was taking out the trash when Amatullo yelled that the child was staring at him, according to court documents.
The boy testified during the three-day trial that Amatullo, who is white, used the racist slur. When the boy’s 15-year-old brother came over, Amatullo shouted the slur at him, too, the brother testified.
Amatullo then entered his apartment and came out holding a kitchen knife. The 7-year-old testified that Amatullo stood in his doorway 6 or 7 feet from the boys, saying, “Come here and I’ll kill you.”
Amatullo called 911 from his doorway, court documents said, and the boys ran to hide behind a staircase and called 911, as well.
Upon arriving, police took Amatullo into custody, where he launched into a stream of derogatory language and used the slur at least six more times after an officer asked him if he considered himself a racist, according to a police affidavit.
Throughout the three-day trial, Amatullo’s court-appointed attorney, Joseph Westover, argued that his client had felt threatened by the 15-year-old. The older boy had said he wanted to beat up Amatullo, Westover said.
Amatullo had been in a dispute with the boys’ family over their alleged failure to clean up after their dogs, the lawyer said.
“The last statement he said was, ‘I’m not gonna get beat up,’” Westover said in closing arguments. “He was saying, ‘Why are you arresting me? I was defending myself.’”
Amatullo didn’t testify but dabbed at his eyes with a tissue while prosecutor Bumjoon Park described him as a racist.
Park said Amatullo was looking to pick a fight with the boys and singled them out because of their race, later trying to claim self-defense despite initiating the encounter. Park played a snippet of Amatullo’s 911 call, where he can be heard yelling insults at the boys from his doorway.
“He was cloaking himself in victimhood and he has failed miserably,” Park said. “He’s been exposed for exactly who he is and what he did here.”
The jury returned nonunanimous guilty verdicts for one count of felony unlawful use of a weapon, which can include carrying or possessing a weapon with the intent to use it to harm someone else as well as actually trying to do so, and two counts of misdemeanor menacing, or creating a “fear of imminent physical injury.” Jurors voted 11-1 on the weapons and menacing charges involving the 15-year-old and 10-2 on the menacing charge involving the younger boy. In a 10-2 decision, the jury found Amatullo not guilty of the weapon charge against the 7-year-old.
Amatullo waived his right to a jury trial on misdemeanor second-degree intimidation charges – a hate crime. Multnomah County Circuit Judge Christopher Ramras found him guilty on both of those counts.
“This whole event began from the direct aggressive and racially charged language toward a 7-year-old child,” Ramras said.
Sentencing was scheduled for Aug. 12. Amatullo faces up to five years in prison for each count of unlawful use of a weapon, while the four misdemeanor convictions each carry up to one-year jail sentences and fines up to $6,250.
CORRECTION: The District Attorney’s Office reported that at the time of the crime, the boys were 7 and 15. An earlier version of the story quoted court documents that reported they were 8 and 14. The story also was updated to correct that the jury found Amatullo not guilty of unlawful use of a weapon against the 7-year-old boy.