Why Did Vincent Chins Attackers Get Off So Easy
In 1982, a Chinese American man was beaten to death with a baseball bat in the middle of Woodward Avenue in Highland Park.
What happened next might have been just as grotesque.
The assailant admitted what he did, was convicted, twice, and never served a day in jail. Instead, he was fined $3,780.
The death of Vincent Chin is considered an American tragedy.
The punishment was so light it ignited a civil rights movement. Before Chin's death, Asian Americans had been reluctant to speak out, bearing racism in silence. After Chin, they were done turning the other cheek. They would be quiet no more.
"People realized if we don't speak out, we will just let more attacks continue," said Helen Zia, a former Detroit autoworker who was one of the leaders of the movement. "It caused people to say: Enough is enough. We have to stand up for people."
The fight against discrimination is the legacy of Vincent Chin and, on the 40th anniversary of his death Sunday, Asian Americans are honoring that bequest.
They're holding a four-day commemoration that began Thursday and features discussions, films and performing arts at various locations in Detroit.
"You can't talk about hate crimes today without talking about Vincent Chin," said Rebeka Islam, who is the director of the event.
The end of Chin's story was the beginning of another one, which is still being played out today.
His death sparked a small revolution, making Detroit the epicenter of a movement. Demonstrations in Detroit spread across the country. For Asian Americans, standing up for oneself had never seemed to be an option.
Tragedy joins college curriculum
In the 1990s, many began attending college in larger numbers and Chin was on the curriculum. Asian studies classes showed the 1987 documentary, "Who Killed Vincent Chin?"
For many students, it was the first time they had heard of Chin or were taught about race from a multicultural perspective.
Some of the future engineers and lawyers and politicians turned into activists and the reason, they said, was Chin.
Chin's late mother, Lily, told "The Phil Donahue Show" in 1983 that her son was just a typical American.
"We are all citizens," she said. "We are only the skin type different. But the heart is the same."
Despite the strides against racism, much needs to be done, activists said. Asian Americans still struggle to be heard, even after 40 years of speaking out.
Many still endure stereotypes as foreigners who aren't loyal to the United States. They deal with racism, most recently spurred by the U.S.-China trade war and from COVID-19 or, as a former president called it, "kung flu."
When eight people were fatally shot last year at massage parlors in Atlanta, some were angry that authorities attributed the shooting to the gunman's sex addiction. Six of the victims were Korean Americans.
"We're still fighting the same battles in 2022," said Jim Shimoura, a Sylvan Lake attorney who was heavily involved in the 1980s movement. "I didn't think I would be sitting here talking about the same issues that killed Chin, but here we are."
But Shimoura, now 69, won't give up. He continues to fight.
That is where the 40th-anniversary remembrance of Chin's death comes in.
For four days, Asian Americans from around the country will discuss the need to continue shining the light on hatred. They want others to know about the fatal attack so it doesn't happen again.
Organizers will encourage people to join their movement. It's important for everyone to stand up to injustice, to assert their right to be Americans, they said.
"Racial animus never goes away. It ebbs and flows," said Roland Hwang of Northville, who, like Shimoura, was a young lawyer helping lead the 1980s campaign. "We continue being organized and having dialogue and working with other civil rights groups. So the work continues."
'Racist' rhetoric
Due to conflicting accounts, some parts of Chin's story remain murky, even after four decades.
One thing is crystal clear: In the early 1980s, Detroit was in trouble. Auto plants were closing. Inflation reached double digits. Michigan's unemployment was 17%, double the national average.
Unions and politicians had an easy scapegoat — Japan. Its autos were taking over American highways. While the Big Three automakers turned out gas guzzlers, Japanese firms produced autos that conserved fuel and rarely broke down.
An autoworker rally against foreign cars in 1981 featured the demolition of an old Toyota Corolla where the weapon of choice wasn't a baseball bat but a sledgehammer.
"The rhetoric by union leaders and politicians was racist," Shimoura said. "They targeted Asians. They don't ask for your ID. They just go after you. Anyone who is Asian can be a target."
On June 19, 1982, Chin and three buddies were attending an impromptu bachelor party at Fancy Pants Lounge, a former strip club in Highland Park. Chin was going to be married in nine days.
Across the narrow stage was Ron Ebens and his stepson, Mike Nitz.
Chin, 27, was an industrial draftsman. Ebens, 42, was foreman of a Chrysler truck plant. Both were hotheads who liked to drink, witnesses said at Ebens' later trial.
The two men argued over Chin's tipping of a dancer and Eben's reference to Chin as a "m-----f-----," according to testimony.
Some witnesses said Ebens blamed Chin's nationality for the high unemployment in Detroit, mistakenly thinking he was Japanese. Others said they never heard such a remark.
Chin walked over to Ebens and sucker-punched him, knocking him off his chair, testimony showed. Chairs were thrown in the ensuing melee, one opening a gash on Nitz's forehead.
After everyone was kicked out of the club, Chin taunted Ebens outside, witnesses said. Nitz went to his car to retrieve a 34-inch wooden bat that bore the signature of Jackie Robinson, the first Black player in Major League Baseball.
Chin and his friends scattered. Ebens and Nitz got into their car to look for Chin, according to testimony. Ten minutes later, they found him a half-mile down the road, sitting on the curb in front of a McDonald's.
Ebens snuck up on Chin and hit him with the bat. Chin tried to run away but slipped in the street. Ebens struck him in the legs, chest and shoulder, breaking his ribs and collarbone.
The last of the four blows landed on Chin's head. He never regained consciousness and died four days later.
During the trial, when a witness used the bat to show how Ebens had swung it, he hit the courtroom floor so hard that the club broke, according to news accounts.
A $3,780 fine
Ebens and Nitz were charged with second-degree murder, but in a plea bargain, Ebens pleaded guilty and Nitz no contest to reduced chargesof manslaughter.
Prosecutors didn't attend the 1983 sentencing, which was normal because of their heavy workload, according to press accounts. Their absence allowed the defense attorneys to give a one-sided version of the killing.
Wayne County Circuit Judge Charles Kaufman imposed the $3,780 fine and gave the defendants three years' probation.
"These weren't the kind of men you send to jail," Kaufman told a reporter later. "You don't make the punishment fit the crime. You make the punishment fit the criminal."
The lenient sentence caught the attention, and ire, of the small Asian American populace in Detroit.
To rectify what they saw as a grave injustice, the newly formed American Citizens for Justice pressured the U.S. Department of Justice to charge the two men with violating Chin's civil rights.
After a federal trial in 1984, Nitz was acquitted but Ebens was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the conviction, saying the judge erred in not allowing the jury to listen to a tape made by an attorney with American Citizens for Justice. In the recording, the lawyer seemed to be coaching witnesses who claimed Ebens made racist remarks in the strip club.
During a retrial in 1987, the federal jury heard the tape and subsequently acquitted Ebens of the civil rights charge.
'Punch in the gut'
How could such a thing happen in America? How could a man walk away scot-free from such a horrendous beating?
Easily, said Asian Americans. In fact, it had been happening, in less gruesome ways, for a long, long time.
Even if someone wanted to argue it was impossible to know whether racism was in Ebens' heart, surely it coursed through a criminal justice system that looked upon a Chinese American beaten to death and equated it with $3,780, activists said.
The beating of an animal would have merited tougher punishment, they said.
Gary Koivu, 66, a lifelong friend of Chin who was with him at the strip club, said the sentence was like another assault.
"It was a punch in the gut," he told The Detroit News last week. "He (Chin) was living the American dream. The rest of us got married and lived the rest of our lives. He missed out on that."
For Asian Americans, the first challenge in fighting prejudice was to show it existed. Other groups couldn't see it. They associated the race with good grades and profitable shops.
The stereotype kept discrimination against the group in the shadows, they said. Chin's death brought it into the light.
Another consequence of Chin's death was bringing the Asian American community together.
Before then, the different nationalities remained apart, each group having its own language, organizations and churches.
But if a Chinese American man could be killed, purportedly for being mistaken for Japanese, it showed that all the groups faced a common threat, said Asian Americans. And it gave them a common cause to fight for.
"One of the legacies (of Chin) was people can come together to try to make a difference," said Zia, who is now a writer and prominent civil rights activist.
"We all have choices where we can do something. There are so many issues today that need people to do something. If you do nothing, then you're part of the problem."
Where is Ebens now?
The strip club and McDonald's restaurant involved in this American tragedy were abandoned many years ago.
A sale sign stands forlornly in front of the restaurant. At Fancy Pants, graffiti covers the ramshackle facade while weeds and trash litter the sidewalk.
Ebens also is long gone. He left Michigan and has lived just outside of Las Vegas since the 1990s, according to property records.
Every year, on June 19, a small group of people protest in front of Ebens' home, according to a 2021 book, "From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement."
The demonstrators clutch candles and signs that say "Remember Vincent Chin," according to the book. Local media dutifully report the vigils and Ebens' lament that race had nothing to do with the attack.
"It changed my whole life," he told a reporter in 2012. "It's something you never get rid of. If you're any kind of a person at all, you never get over it. Never."
Ebens, now 82, didn't respond to calls from The News.
In 1987, he reached a settlement in a civil lawsuit that required him to pay $1.5 million to Chin's estate.
But he had been fired by Chrysler after his conviction and worked only menial jobs afterward. He has made just a few nominal payments in the civil case, said Zia, who represents the estate.
With interest, the unpaid debt has ballooned to $8 million, Zia said. Ebens tried to protect his home by putting it into a family trust but that didn't stop Chin's estate from placing a lien on it, she said.
Zia said the legal claim is continually renewed to serve as a remembrance.
"As long as he lives, he will owe money," Zia said about Ebens. "He will never be free of debt. This is a reminder he owes a debt to society and owes a debt to Lily Chin for taking away her beloved child."
fdonnelly@detroitnews.com
(313) 223-4186
Twitter: @prima_donnelly
Source: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2022/06/17/vincent-chin-chinese-american-fatal-beating-detroit-asian-american-civil-rights-movement/7615335001/