Black skier gets jail for punching racist -- and judge scolds him for choosing violence as self defense

A black Wisconsin man was sentenced to jail time for punching an older white man who goaded him with racial slurs.

Brandon Hines, who is black, was at a Snowmass Village bar April 13 with two white friends when a local man approached them and made racist remarks, reported the Aspen Daily News.

The 40-year-old Joshua Jones brought up National Brotherhood of Skiers, a black ski club, which he called "n*ggers be slipping," according to Hines' lawyer.

Hines, who was the only black person in the bar at the time, knocked off the man's cap and tipped over his drink.

Then another local man, Jim Andre, intervened but "persistently" used the same racial slur, according to witnesses.

Andre held out his hand for the black man to shake, but witnesses said Hines spat in it.

Hines' friends said they held him back to "protect everyone else," but he punched Andre after the older man lunged at him, according to witnesses.

The punch knocked Andre off his barstool, but he got up and was able to walk outside -- where he fell over and suffered a traumatic head injury.

Hines “was backed into a corner, figuratively,” and is willing to take responsibility for punching Andre, said his attorney -- but not for the injuries that happened 10 to 15 minutes later outside.

Both Andre and Jones were intoxicated at the time, police said, but Hines was not.

Hines' attorney said the punch did not cause Andre's broken nose or facial fractures, and the judge agreed the older man could have fallen due to drunkenness.

But prosecutors initially charged Hines with a felony, and the judge imposed a two-week jail term for Hines.

“The punch, though obviously provoked, was an act of violence, and that kind of assault cannot be tolerated,” said Judge Chris Seldin.

The judge condemned racially offensive language used by Andre and Jones, but he told Hines that the most effective responses to hate have been nonviolent.

“I’m sure you know of those,” Seldin said.

Hines' attorney pointed out that Snowmass Village police didn't acknowledge the racial element in the case until his client pressed bias-motivated harassment charges against Jones months later.

The jail sentence won't be enforced until a restitution hearing Jan. 7, and he will re-examine the punishment at that point.

The newspaper reported a jail deputy tried to comfort a distraught Hines outside the courtroom by telling him the sentence would likely last only eight days, based on good behavior.

Hines could have faced up to two years in jail after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor.