(Photo: Jazzpher "Jazz" Evans/Saulter Law P.C.)
The attorney of a Black college student in Illinois said the woman suffered numerous injuries by a white bar owner in a brutal “racially fueled” attack. The owner has been charged with felony aggravated battery.
Jazzpher “Jazz” Evans, a 19-year-old freshman student-athlete at Quincy University, was at The Barn nightclub April 4 when the owner, Steve William Homan, choked Evans out and tossed her “lifeless body” outside with little regard for her well-being, according to a statement from Evan’s attorney, Keenan J. Saulter’s law firm.
Evans recalled the incident as “one of the scariest moments of my life.” After the attack, she suffered a concussion, which left her with two black eyes and cuts to her face. Now she and her family are calling for justice.
“This is unbelievable,” her father, Marvin Evans, told ABC 7. “Why is this guy not locked up right now? Why?”
It’s unclear what set off the altercation, but Evans said the bar owner singled her out because she is Black.
“The girl I was with is a white girl and I’m obviously African-American,” she said, according to the Atlanta Black Star. “We were doing the exact same thing, standing in the exact same spot, and he didn’t say a word to her. He literally had tunnel vision and came straight for me.”
Local police say they’ve yet to find any evidence that the incident was racially motivated, but they are looking into that claim. Robert Copley, chief of the Quincy Police Department, issued a statement that said the department is working with the Adams County State’s Attorney’s Office to investigate the altercation.
Evans is still receiving treatment for her physical injuries. But Saulter is worried about the emotional scars from what he characterized as a “life-threatening beating.”