Brothers get whoopin' then jail for slurs
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By TIM GURRISTER
Standard-Examiner staff
tgurrister@standard.net
OGDEN -- The last of three drunken men who hurled racial slurs at a black man, then had their collective clocks cleaned by him, was sentenced to jail this week on riot charges.
The brawl left Ernest Martinez, 23, briefly unconscious after he initially got in the face of Lynzell Jackson, who was visiting from out of town, according to police reports.
Martinez and his brothers Emilio, 21, and Eric, 22, all of Ogden, were each charged with riot and intoxication for the Nov. 30 incident outside the downtown Salomon Center.
The fight was decided so quickly that Eric Martinez wasn't able to get his brass knuckles out of his pants pocket, according to reports.
Jackson was not charged.
"We determined his acts were justified by the behavior of the other three," said Deputy Weber County Attorney Sandra Corp, prosecutor in the case.
"He got the better of them because he was the only one who wasn't intoxicated," said Corp, noting Jackson was not any kind of martial-arts expert or trained fighter, and not especially physically imposing.
"He is a nice gentleman and said he wouldn't have made a big deal out of the situation but for the fact his nephew and his girlfriend were with him," she said.
"He asked them to stop. In return, they surrounded him ... Mr. Jackson put his hands on Ernesto's arms to keep him from swinging and they had a discussion about respect."
But the N-word continued to fly and the fight was on, she said, "And it was three on one."
Corp said the Martinez brothers told police they were actually calling each other the well-known racial slur for African-Americans and that Jackson misunderstood.
"That was a new one on me," she said. "I've not heard that claim before."
Injuries were relatively minor, and no one required hospitalization. Jackson's hand suffered bruising.
On Wednesday, 2nd District Judge W. Brent West gave Eric Martinez 180 days in jail and suspended Emilio Martinez's one-year jail sentence, pending payment of $966 in fines and fees.
In January, West sentenced Ernest Martinez to 90 days in jail. His arrest for instigating the fight violated the terms of his parole on a 2005 burglary charge, returning him to the Utah State Prison.
The jail time will be served concurrently with the remainder of his prison term of up to five years on the burglary charge.
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I wish I could have watched this happen!! Glad he didn't get charged with anything.