Charges have been filed against a 54-year-old white man accused of killing a 34-year-old Black man during a violent road rage confrontation last week in Massachusetts.
According to People, authorities in Belmont claim the white suspect from Hudson allegedly hurled racial slurs at the Black victim, who was from Boston.
Dean Kapsalis allegedly drove his pickup truck over Henry Tapia on the afternoon of Jan. 19, causing fatal injuries.
Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office announced on Monday that formal murder charges had been filed against Kapsalis, along with motor vehicle and civil rights charges in the death of Henry Tapia.
Investigators say that eyewitnesses came forward saying, “the defendant and the victim were engaged in [a] verbal altercation in the roadway when the (white) defendant, began yelling racial slurs at the victim, a Black man.”
The official statement stated that witnesses reported “hearing the two men arguing before the victim allegedly began to walk back to his vehicle, a Honda Civic. At that time, the defendant allegedly entered his vehicle, a Dodge Dakota pickup truck, and drove it at the victim, striking him by the driver’s side of his vehicle and dragging him a short distance before fleeing the scene.”
The Boston Globe claimed that Kapsalis alleged to investigators that the victim had threatened him with a gun, but no such weapons were recovered from his vehicle.
