Joseph Scarpino gained a very uncomfortable kind of temporary celebrity in July 2004 when he was badly beaten in an Akron, Ohio, pizza restaurant. The beating was caught on videotape.
Scarpino was standing in line at the counter of DaVinci's Pizza in the wee hours. A woman came into the restaurant and walked to the front of the line. Scarpino said something, she loudly berated him, and the manager asked her to leave.
She left, but returned momentarily with her boyfriend in tow. He was 6'4"" and weighed more than 300 lbs. Asked by the woman to "take care of" this blankety-blank, the boyfriend, Mark Jones, gave Scarpino a furious beating, which resulted in a concussion. The nation watched the undeserved beating over and over on various television programs.
Scarpino was white, his assailant and the woman, black. The attack caused white supremacist groups to lash out with pent-up racist fury. In the end, Jones was convicted of felonious assault in 2005 and received a four-year sentence.
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