WATCH: Family speaks out after racist released from jail after attacking 1-year-old boy
He sounded like a madman,” the child's grandmother said in an interview.
A white man who kicked a 1-year-old boy in the back at a grocery store in Wichita, Kansas, and yelled racial slurs at the child is out of jail, the Kansas City Star is reporting.
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Trace Riff, 31, was released after the brutal attack on little Jhavii Fry last Sunday morning, Dec. 23, according to the Star. He has a history of mental illness and homelessness as well as trouble with the law, including not reporting to parole officers, drug use and violent crimes, according to the news organization. He also is on probation in Oklahoma for a felony meth charge.
“I don’t understand,” Yolanda Frierson, Jhavii’s grandmother, told the news organization. “He’s out just hours after he attacked a baby.”
Jhavii’s mom, Lashantai Whitaker, says she is beside herself with Riff back out on the streets.
Whitaker, 29, told the Star that the incident happened very quickly. She walked into Dllion’s grocery store and her 11-year-old daughter walked in behind her with Jhavii holding his sister’s hand, said Whitaker, who is pregnant.
Whitaker’s daughter screamed that Riff had kicked the little boy, the Star reported. Riff kicked Jhavii with his cowboy boot, causing the toddler to fall down and cry out.
“He’s never cried or screamed that loud,” Whitaker told the Star.
Onlookers inside the store grabbed Riff, who tried to leave, and he wrnt on a racist rant while the onlookers tackled him, according to the news organization. He yelled out the N word and said he was a white supremacist, Whitaker said.
“He sounded like a madman,” Whitaker told the Star.
The little boy was checked out by emergency workers and found to be OK – his coat protected him, his mother said.
Riff was arrested and booked into the Sedgewick County Jail on Sunday afternoon on suspicion of ethnic intimidation, battery and resisting police, the Star reported. He was released Sunday afternoon on his own recognizance. If he does not show up for his court appearance for the misdemeanor charges, he will face a $3,500 fine, according to the news organization.
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