EUGENE, Ore. (AP) -- A 22-year-old Eugene man has pleaded guilty and apologized for his race-based intimidation of a 15-year-old stranger in downtown Springfield.
The Eugene Register-Guard reports (http://bit.ly/PSI8ok) Lane County Circuit Judge Ilisa Rooke-Ley also ordered on Wednesday for Matthew Robert Dean Booster to destroy a large Confederate flag, which flew on Booster's pickup truck as he drove it toward the fleeing victim.
Authorities say Booster was driving with three juvenile accomplices, ages 16 and 17, when one of the passengers reportedly told him that the mixed-race victim had made a gesture.
Booster and his passengers then yelled threats and racial epithets as the juveniles chased the victim.
The boy hid in nearby bushes and phoned his mother for help, but was so terrified that he initially refused to run to her vehicle when she arrived to rescue him.