FBI May Investigate Apparent Hate Murder of White With Black Friends
If a white man is attacked and murdered because he was ‘hanging out’ with black friends, should that be investigated as a federal hate crime?
That question looms in Louisiana after 24-year-old Michael Luke ‘Boulon’ Darby was fatally stabbed earlier this month outside a bar in Lafayette, where he had gone with two friends who are African-American.
After leaving the pub on Jefferson Street in the early morning hours of Sunday, Oct. 14, Darby and his two friends were confronted and harassed ‘by three white guys, who were apparently drunk,’ the Eunice News reported. The three men shouted ‘racial slurs’ at Darby, ‘questioning why he was hanging out with his two black companions,’ the newspaper reported.
Darby allegedly ‘charged one of the three’ white men and, when a scuffle ensued, his black friends broke up the fight, the newspaper reported. A few minutes later, Darby was ‘involved in another altercation’ with one of the three white men before telling his two companions to get their vehicle and meet him at a nearby street corner, the newspaper reported. When his friends returned, however, Darby was nowhere to be seen, and they couldn’t find him by driving around the area.
Darby’s body was found during the noon hour on Oct. 15 behind some bushes several blocks from where the initial confrontation occurred. An autopsy determined he died from stab wounds.
Video surveillance footage and witness information led investigators to identify two suspects in the case, authorities say. Kyle James Toups, 24, of Carencro, La., was arrested without incident on Oct. 16 in Newton County, Texas, by agents assigned to the U.S. Marshal’s Violent Offenders Task Force. He is currently being held only on a state charge of second-degree murder. His brother, Travis Toups, 35, of Carencro, La., was arrested Oct. 17 on a charge of accessory to second-degree murder. He has been released on bail, authorities said.