UPDATE: This story has been updated with a Lincoln City Police comment on the lack of bias crime charges.
Police arrested seven men on the central Oregon coast Saturday night following an alleged racist incident during a Fourth of July celebration on the beach.
Lincoln City Police said the men were part of a group of 10 white people from Clark County, Washington, who had been harassing a Black family by yelling racist slurs and using Nazi salutes as people spent the holiday on the beach in front of the Inn at Spanish Head in Lincoln City.
After officers arrived, they formed a barricade between the group and the family, allowing the family to safely leave the beach, police said.
Members of the group, who police said were “highly intoxicated,” then began taunting the officers, challenging them to a fight and setting off illegal aerial fireworks, according to the police department. Ahead of the holiday weekend, Lincoln City officials warned people against using illegal fireworks, threatening “consequences” for those who did.
Additional officers arrived at the beach and arrested the seven men on several charges, including riot, interfering with police, disorderly conduct, harassment, possession of illegal fireworks and offensive littering.
Gennadiy Kachankov, Antoliy Kachankov, Andrey Zaytsev, Oleg Saranchuk, Ruslan Tkachenko and Yuriy Kachankov, all from Clark County, were arrested Saturday and later released, police said. One man who refused to identify himself was taken to the Lincoln County Jail for fingerprint identification.
Lincoln City Police said Monday that the group will not face bias crime charges, as there was allegedly no physical contact, destruction of property of threat of serious injury involved in the altercation.
“Unfortunately using racist or derogatory language is not in itself criminal under Oregon law,” the police department said in a news release. “We will file the appropriate charges we can prove under the law.”
Police also said the men were released Saturday according to the Lincoln County Jail’s policy related to COVID-19, which limits the number of charges for which a suspect can be incarcerated before trial.
The incident occurred against the backdrop of continued nationwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality against people of color, spurred by the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department in May.
Protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement have occurred around the Pacific Northwest, including on the central Oregon coast.
Protests have also taken place in Clark County and have renewed criticism of the Clark County Sheriff’s Department for adorning vehicles with “Thin Blue Line” stickers that are often affiliated with the “Blue Lives Matter” countermovement. The chair of the Clark County Council responded to the criticism after the sheriff ordered the stickers removed by saying that she doesn’t believe systemic racism exists in the community.
--Jamie Hale; jhale@oregonian.com; 503-294-4077; @HaleJamesB
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