‘Very Mean When He Drinks’: Minnesota Man Who Knocked Black Man Unconscious In Bar After Calling Him Racial Slur, Leaving Victim with Brain Bleed Faces Federal Hate Crime Charge

A Minnesota man is set to stand trial this month to answer to assault charges nearly a year after he called a Black man a racial slur at a bar, then punched him in the face and knocked him unconscious. Justin Kudla was charged with assault after a violent encounter with a Black bar patron at Huck’s Shipwreck Saloon in Belle Plaine on Feb. 3, 2024, according to a complaint filed in the Scott County District Court. Justin Kudla, 35, (left) faces federal hate crime charges for a racial attack against 37-year-old Benjamin Morelock (right) at a bar in Belle Plaine, Minnesota on Feb. 3, 2024. (Photos: Sherburne County Jail, GoFundMe) That night, a witness told authorities that she heard 35-year-old Kudla, who is white, call 37-year-old Benjamin Morelock a racial epithet, then saw him strike Morelock in the face. Surveillance video showed the 2 a.m. attack and Kudla leaving Morelock on the ground unconscious for 20 minutes. After Morelock regained consciousness, someone from the bar helped him home. The next day, a Huck’s employee went to Morelock’s home to check on him and found him in bed, going in and out of consciousness. Morelock went to the hospital where...