White supremacist gets life sentence in hate crime killing

A white supremacist who intentionally ran a black teenager over with his car was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday, KOIN 6 News reported.

Russell Courtier received his sentence in a Portland, Ore., courtroom after prosecutors presented evidence that the August 2016 death of 19-year-old Larnell Bruce was a racist attack.

Courtier was a member of the white supremacist prison gang European Kindred at the time of the incident.{mosads}

“It stemmed from his racist desire to be a part of a ‘brotherhood.’ This is an appropriate sentence given that the jury found Russell Courtier’s actions of murdering Larnell Bruce were motivated by his perception of Mr. Bruce’s race or the color of his skin,” prosecutor Dave Hannon said.

Courtier and Bruce reportedly got into a fight outside a 7-Eleven store in the Portland suburb of Gresham on the night of the attack.

Bruce pulled out a machete and Courtier stopped fighting and got into his car, according to surveillance video. Bruce could be seen making “evasive maneuvers on foot in an attempt to escape Mr. Courtier and his red Jeep,” according to court documents. 

Bruce’s head had been smashed into a glass window, but he left before police arrived, KOIN 6 reported.

A short distance away, however, police found Bruce on the sidewalk suffering from life-threatening wounds after he had been run over by a Jeep.

Courtier’s girlfriend, Colleen Hunt, was also present during the incident and pleaded guilty to manslaughter in March, according to the outlet. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Tuesday.

She told detectives that she encouraged Courtier to fight Bruce by yelling “get him baby, get him baby,” the outlet noted. 

“We do have witnesses that say the man was on the sidewalk, all the evidence points that way — that he was trying to get away from these folks and they were actively seeking to hurt him,” Gresham police officer John Rasmussen told KOIN 6 News at the time.

Police later arrested Courtier and Hunt. Courtier was convicted in March of murder, felony hit and run and Oregon’s hate crime statue, second-degree intimidation.

Natasha Bruce, the 19-year-old’s stepmother, pleaded for the judge to hand down the toughest possible sentence, KOIN 6 reported.

“I feel like in any situation like this you would never get what you really want,” Natasha Bruce said outside of court. But she said the fact there is no chance Courtier will be on the streets for decades “is some type of relief for us and whoever else may have to deal may have to deal with this man again.”