Man Awarded $475,000 for Racial Intimidation
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CHICAGO — A black man who was attacked by a white man yelling racial slurs has been awarded $475,000 in damages under a rarely used state law that forbids racial intimidation.
A Cook County Circuit Court jury on Thursday made the award to Mack Green, 55, one of the first beneficiaries of the Illinois Ethnic Intimidation Act, according to his lawyers.
The law, adopted in 1982 but rarely used, allows victims of racial, religious or ethnic hostility to file civil lawsuits against their assailants, independent of criminal prosecution.
During the trial, Green testified that he was attacked by Stephen Windy, 30, on Jan. 22, 1988, after his tow truck broke down in a predominantly white neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.
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