Photo: cbs17.com
White supremacist Russell Orlando Courtier from Portland, Oregon, has been sentenced to life behind bars and a minimum of 28 years before he’s eligible for parole, in the murder of 19-year-old Larnell Bruce Jr.
Courtier belongs to the European Kindred gang, a white supremacist group he joined while in prison. In August 2016, he got into a fight with Bruce Jr. outside a 7-Eleven and it escalated to physical violence and, ultimately, murder, when he ran the latter over with his Jeep.
At the end of last month, after an 8-day trial, a jury found Courtier guilty on all charges: murder, hit-and-run driving and second-degree intimidation, which is a hate crime in the state of Oregon, as OregonLive informs. He had hoped for a lighter sentence, but prosecutors argued that he was “unapologetic” for the events of August 2016 and clearly a very “violent” man. The judge agreed with the prosecutors, according to the sentence handed out this week.
Also with Courtier at the time was Colleen Hunt, his then-girlfriend and a passenger in the Jeep. She pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and was sentenced in a separate trial to 10 years behind bars, after her attorney argued that, while she made mistakes, she did not espouse the same beliefs as Courtier on white supremacy.
Police records show that, while Courtier was mowing down Bruce Jr. with the car, Hunt screamed encouragement at him, “Get him baby!” and “Run him over!” Surveillance footage captured the teen’s final and desperate dash to safety, as he tried to escape the car gunning for him on the pavement.
During the sentencing, Bruce Jr.’s family spoke, but Courtier declined to make a statement. He cried when hearing relatives talk about their pain, but the teen’s step-mother tells the media that his tears were “for the cameras” because “a person who does what he did doesn’t to me seem to have any empathy or remorse.”
At the end of last month, after an 8-day trial, a jury found Courtier guilty on all charges: murder, hit-and-run driving and second-degree intimidation, which is a hate crime in the state of Oregon, as OregonLive informs. He had hoped for a lighter sentence, but prosecutors argued that he was “unapologetic” for the events of August 2016 and clearly a very “violent” man. The judge agreed with the prosecutors, according to the sentence handed out this week.
Also with Courtier at the time was Colleen Hunt, his then-girlfriend and a passenger in the Jeep. She pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and was sentenced in a separate trial to 10 years behind bars, after her attorney argued that, while she made mistakes, she did not espouse the same beliefs as Courtier on white supremacy.
Police records show that, while Courtier was mowing down Bruce Jr. with the car, Hunt screamed encouragement at him, “Get him baby!” and “Run him over!” Surveillance footage captured the teen’s final and desperate dash to safety, as he tried to escape the car gunning for him on the pavement.
During the sentencing, Bruce Jr.’s family spoke, but Courtier declined to make a statement. He cried when hearing relatives talk about their pain, but the teen’s step-mother tells the media that his tears were “for the cameras” because “a person who does what he did doesn’t to me seem to have any empathy or remorse.”
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