Hate crime investigated in Revere

REVERE – Revere police say the two men who allegedly beat a Hispanic man with a baseball bat while taunting him with racial slurs Saturday at a Wendy’s restaurant drive-thru could be charged with a hate crime.”If you have language of that nature coupled with an assault and battery, it can be defined as a hate crime,” Police Capt. Michael Murphy said. “Whether or not the motivation of this assault was based on race is something we’d have to discuss with the district attorney.”The 33-year-old victim, a Revere resident, told police the incident started at about 2:40 a.m. after he and his wife placed an order at the drive-thru on Squire Road.The man and his wife began to drive away when they realized an error was made in their order, police said.The man walked back to the drive-thru window, as the restaurant building was closed to customers, to try to fix the problem, police said.As he was at the window, two men inside one of the waiting cars began yelling at the man and began using racial slurs.”The victim reported that the men shouted at him to get out of the country and used racial epithets offensive to the Hispanic culture,” Murphy said.In defense, the victim informed the suspects that not only is he a U.S. Citizen, but is an eight-year Marine Corps veteran, police said.The argument escalated before the suspects allegedly got out of their vehicle and began beating the man with a baseball bat. He suffered injuries to his head, back and arms but declined medical attention.The suspects fled the scene in a silver or gray Dodge Neon, police said. Detectives are examining surveillance video to gather more information.