Oregon Teenager Pleads Guilty, Sentenced to 11 Years in Swastika Attack
A swastika Image by Wikimedia Commons
An Oregon teenager pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Thursday for taking part in an attack on a friend who was beaten, forced to eat cat feces and had a swastika carved into his forehead, prosecutors said.
Blue Kalmbach, 16, the last of four teenage defendants to plead guilty in the case, entered guilty pleas to first-degree kidnapping, robbery and second-degree assault, Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney Christopher Ramras said.
Ramras said Kalmbach was responsible “for the most, sort of, hands on physical abuse,” Ramras said, and thus received the longest sentence of the four. Kalmbach apologized in court before he was sentenced.
In February, the four teenagers were charged with luring 15-year-old Dustyn Murrian into a shed, hitting him with a crowbar, shooting him with a BB gun, forcing him to eat cat feces and carving the Nazi symbol into his forehead with a box cutter.
At the time of the crime, Murrian said his attackers told him they wanted money and a skateboard. They allowed him to leave the shed to get the items but he fled to a nearby auto shop, where employees called police.
Kalmbach, Jenna Montgomery, 15, and Jess Taylor, 17, were charged as adults with assault, kidnapping and robbery. Montgomery was sentenced to nearly nine years in a youth correctional facility and Taylor to about 7-1/2 years, Ramras said.
Shane Connell, 14, was tried as a juvenile and earlier sentenced to 10 years.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
