#Men accused of chasing black teens, yelling racial slurs at them

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Matthew and Michael Lemelin
Manchester Police Dept.

Two Connecticut men are accused of chasing down three black teens on bikes and yelling racial slurs at them early Sunday morning, a report said.

Matthew Lemelin, 27 and 28-year-old Michael Lemelin were both arrested and charged following the alleged racially-motivated encounter about 1:30 a.m. on Main Street in Manchester, NBC Connecticut reported.

The teens told police the suspects, who are white, ran the kids off the road and nearly hit them with their car as the kids rode to a gas station in town.

One of the men also allegedly got out of their car and chased after the boys, they told police.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that if they got their hands on one of these little boys, they were gonna hurt them,” Christina Torres, the mother of one of the teens, told the news outlet.

“The men got into their truck and chased down our children. We gotta stand together, because this could have been very different. I could have woken up on Sunday morning to my child dead,” Torres tearfully said.

Shortly after the incident, cops located the suspects’ vehicle in a nearby driveway.

Nobody answered the door initially, but cops were later able to obtain arrest warrants.

Both men were charged with risk of injury to a minor, second-degree reckless endangerment and second-degree breach of peace.

Matthew is also facing a charge of intimidation based on bigotry and bias.