Drunken rednecks leave a country music concert and beat an innocent Black man. While it sounds like a cliché Hollywood plot, it was all too real for Kevin Lockett, who was seen on video being thrown onto the train tracks and then severely beaten at the Wood Street T-Station in May following the Kenny Chesney concert by five White men also accused of using racial slurs.
Those five, Ryan Kyle, 21, David Depretis, 21, Kenneth Gault, 21, and brothers Christopher Laplace, 23, and Matthew Laplace, 21, will be heading to trial, but the level of guilt that can be attached to each remains problematic because, as Lockett said during a preliminary hearing last month, he can’t remember who said what.
Kyle faces the most severe charges, and while there may be some doubt about what he said, there is little about what he did. He allegedly threw Lockett onto the trolley tracks and when he climbed up, he beat him to the platform, hitting him in the head at least eight times.
Given his injuries—multiple fractures of his facial bones—it’s a wonder Lockett remembers anything. At the hearing before Judge Oscar Petite, Lockett said he had gotten on the T at the North Side station May 30 and meant to get off at Gateway, but the crowd blocked him, so he continued on to Wood Street.
During the ride, he said he heard racial slurs coming from someone in the group, but he could not say whom. When he got off, the others left through a different door.
Video from the station camera shows Kyle grabbing Lockett and throwing him onto the tracks. Lockett gets back up and tries to retrieve his cooler full of food and beer; Kyle hits him, knocking him to the platform where he continues hitting him.
Port Authority police testified they arrived almost immediately thanks to a 9-1-1 call from a witness, and arrested the men. Though each was charged with ethnic intimidation, Petite dismissed that charge against Depretis after Port Authority Detective Lee Niebel testified he never made any slurs.
That was not so with all of them, Niebel said. When he initially stopped them in the station, two asked him “why do you care about a nigger?”
Kyle is charged with attempted homicide, aggravated assault, conspiracy, robbery and ethnic intimidation. Matt Laplace face assault robbery conspiracy and intimidation charges. His brother, Christopher, faces robbery, intimidation and conspiracy. Gault is charged with assault, intimidation and conspiracy; and Depretis with robbery assault and conspiracy.
Kyle’s attorney Al Burke, who is Black, said the video evidence is hard to refute, but because there is no audio some of the intimidation charges could be dropped.
“My client never touched the cooler, but the prosecutor argued that everyone acted in concert, so they conspired and are all guilty of the charges,” he said. “I don’t think it was ever in doubt that this would go to trial though.”
The suspects are scheduled for formal arraignment Sept. 14. Burke, previously a longtime Washington County prosecutor, said he expects a trial date in November.
“Sometimes with a high-profile case, they’ll try to do it sooner,” he said. “But we also have five defendants and that means five defense attorneys and that could slow things down. So we’ll see.”
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