Satisfying as it may be to sucker punch someone who says something you deem awful, you can’t punch a pickup truck. It’s an inanimate object and will just hurt your fist. So Andrew Bartell came up with an alternative. Torch it.
Bartell, a 26-year-old student at the University of Kansas, was visiting his grandparents in Holton in early July 2016. On July 3, Bartell’s grandparents’ neighbor, Steven Battles, had parked his truck on the street near Bartell’s grandparents’ home. Battles’ truck had a Confederate flag painted on the hood and a Confederate flag flying from the bed. Bartell found this very disrespectful because he felt the Confederate flag was “a symbol of hatred, slavery and the KKK.”
Bartell asked Battles to move his truck. Battles refused. Bartell went to the police, who refused to take a report of this hate crime. What else could he do? Continue reading