Police Cover-up Revealed on Killing of Interracial Couple

When Jan Pawel Pietrzak and Quiana Jenkins-Pietrzak, a newlywed interracial couple, were found brutally slain in their home in Riverside, CA last fall, the mothers of both victims believed race played a part in the deaths. Pietrzak, 24, was a white Marine sergeant, and his 26-year-old wife was black. The four Marines, two of whom served under Pietrzak, who were charged with the murders are black.

Based on the fact that property stolen from the murdered couple was recovered from the suspects, authorities claimed the motive for the murders was strictly financial. In making this incredible claim, the sheriffs department overlooked the extreme brutality of the killings. Both victims had been bound and severely beaten before being shot multiple times. The female had been sexually assaulted; she was found naked, with a vibrator on the floor between her splayed legs.

Although the facts of the case pointed to more than a robbery gone bad, the authorities disputed the notion that race played any part in the murders. Josh Button, a homicide investigator with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, said "there's nothing to suggest what happened was a racial crime." According to Button, anyone who believed race played a role in the killings was uninformed and engaging in wild speculation. "It's just people looking at the case from the outside and making up their own minds," he said.

Now several months later, it turns out there was evidence of a racial motive. On Friday, Riverside County investigator Ben Ramirez testified that the killers had spray-painted two racial slurs inside the slain couple's home. So, does this mean the authorities were lying when they made their previous statements?

No, they say. Incredibly, police maintain the slurs weren't evidence of a racial motive, but rather were merely a ruse. According to The Californian, authorities have said the racial slurs were "an attempt to throw investigators off the trail of the Marines, who are all black, by making it seem as if the Pietrzaks, a mixed-race couple, were killed by racists."

That sentence is stupefying, but it reveals the true reason why the murders were never considered a racial crime. It's not that there was insufficient evidence; the suspects just weren't the right color. It's clear that the authorities in Riverside County believe only white people are capable of committing racially-motivated acts of violence. While this belief is groundless, it's one shared by both the media and "watchdog" organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The SPLC regularly pushes for federal hate crimes legislation, citing the need for federal authorities to prosecute hate crimes when local authorities are "unwilling to act." Yet when Ron Smith, a Baltimore Sun columnist, wrote about the authorities' refusal to attribute the Pietrzaks' deaths to "hate", Mark Potok of the SPLC responded by attacking Smith and unquestioningly repeating the authorities' dubious claim that robbery, and not race hatred, was the motive.

We must overcome this pervasive but false belief that only white people are capable of racism and racial hatred.


Murdered: Quiana Jenkins-Pietrzak and Jan Pawel Pietrzak


Charged: Kevin Cox, Emrys John, Tyrone Miller, and Kesuan Sykes