‘What trash are you speaking?’: A San Diego man beat a Syrian refugee teen for talking in Arabic

There were plenty of open seats on the San Diego trolley, but Adrian Richard Vergara chose the one right next to a teenage Syrian refugee.

The teen boy felt nervous as Vergara sat down, he would later say. Traveling on his way home from school, he was talking on FaceTime with a friend, speaking in Arabic — when suddenly the man next to him ripped the earbud out of the boy’s ear.

“What trash are you speaking?” Vergara asked him, as prosecutors described at his arraignment last month.

And when the teen refugee responded, “Arabic,” prosecutors said, that’s when the brutal beating began

On Monday, Vergara, 26, pleaded guilty to the Oct. 15 felony hate-crime assault after surveillance video on the trolley identified him as the attacker. Vergara is expected to be sentenced next month to five years in prison, KGTV reported.

NSP

Article URL : https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/11/05/san-diego-man-beats-syrian-teen-speaking-arabic/

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