“Get That White Boy!”

For the victims, it was a terrifying experience — somebody shouts “get that white boy” and then they are surrounded by teens and young adults spitting out racial taunts, laughing, pummeling them with fists and kicking them in the head.
For the suspects in the attacks during the summer and fall in downtown Denver, the muggings were little more than pranks, they say, in which they stole money to rent hotel rooms for partying or beat someone up just because they were white and assumed to have money and to be drunk and defenseless.

One thing victims and attackers have in common: Both will be permanently changed by the events.

The victims, at least 16, suffered permanent facial damage, broken bones and cracked skulls. One was in a coma. The suspects, who thought they’d serve just days in jail if caught, are charged with felony robbery and bias-related crimes that could put them in prison for years.

“I don’t know how this thing became a racial thing,” said Ian Curwen, 31, now charged with two robberies and, like 34 others charged in the attacks, awaiting trial at the Denver County Jail. “I know some of these kids. They come from good families. They’re just kids being kids.”

Several of those charged in the wave of attacks have prior criminal histories, and some claim gang membership. At least two of those now awaiting trial were charged with similar crimes, also near downtown, in 2008, though charges were dismissed.
Several of those charged in the wave of attacks have prior criminal histories, and some claim gang membership