An Oregon Black man was detained by armed, white vigilantes dressed as cowboys in 2023. Now, not only are the Lane County Sheriff’s Mounted Posse facing a civil rights lawsuit for alleged racial profiling, folks can’t help but wonder whether his detainment signifies something deeper… and utterly terrifying.
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Keviantae “Kev” Hill was in Eugene, Oregon, visiting friends in July 2023 when they visited the Lane County Fair. Around 9:30 p.m., according to reports, two men began following Hill, pointing flashlights at him, and telling him how they needed to speak with him without identifying themselves. The Mounted Posse members, who are deputized by the county sheriff’s office, are not authorized to detain people or make arrests.
According to the lawsuit filed Tuesday (July 22), two Mounted Posse members chased, tackled, forced Hill face-down to the ground, knelt on his back, and refused to let him sit up for several minutes. Hill was gasping for air and said he could not breathe. Only after witnesses, including Hill’s friend’s mother, “demanded they stop the assault” and started taping the incident on their phones, did defendant Steve Egeret take his knee off Hill’s back.
The civilian volunteers, whose primary role that day was to help with parking cars, were told that Hill was not a suspect in the fair-related shooting and that authorities didn’t want him detained. To add insult to injury, county dispatch records identified the suspect as a white man wearing a red hat.
The historical context behind vigilante horse posses in Oregon is jarring. In the late 1800s, Prineville, Oregon, like many frontier towns, saw the rise of self-proclaimed “vigilantes.” These groups, often made up of prominent citizens, initially aimed to bring order to areas with little law enforcement. However, their methods escalated… quickly. Riding on horseback, these vigilantes enforced their will through death threats and even lynchings. While some initially supported them out of frustration with crime, their increasing violence and lack of accountability led to a rapid decline in public trust.
Fast forward to today, Oregon’s counties feature Sheriff’s Mounted Posses, which are volunteer organizations that are supposed to assist local law enforcement, not take matters into their own hands at will.
Hill’s lawsuit accuses the Lane County Sheriff’s Mounted Posse, Sgt. Levi McKenny, volunteers Steve Egeret and Byron Trapp, and an unidentified security guard of false arrest, excessive use of force, assault and battery, negligence, and violations of the state’s bias crime law. The Lane County District Attorney declined to pursue any charges in the case, but the FBI is reportedly investigation possible criminal civil rights violations, the lawsuit says.
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