When Johnny and Lisa Bonta were attacked near a gas station in Fernley, Nevada they had no idea that their nightmare would only deepen when police arrived.
The family, Paiutes who live in the Reno Sparks Indian Colony, was pumping gas at a Quick Stop on their way to Reno when several men pulled up in a blue car and tried to start a fight. Hoping to avoid confrontation, the Bontas drove off with son-in-law Shawn Murray at the wheel. The three men followed, cutting them off on the freeway ramp and causing them to crash.
“They all jumped out of the car with baseball bats, knives and a crowbar, and we knew they were going to hurt us,” said Lisa Bonta, in an interview from Washoe Medical Center, where she was in treatment for seizures she suffers.
The fight broke out on the highway after 1 p.m. and while traffic was passing by, no one would stop to help them. Lisa and her daughter, Alyssa, were terrified watching the brutal and bloody fight as her unarmed husband and son-in-law tried to fight off the three young men in their 20s.
“I saw one of them hit my husband in the head with a bat, and the other one was trying to cut off his braid with a knife. Johnny was covered in blood and they just kept hitting him with a crow bar. They even tried to slit his throat,” she added.
“Jacob Cassell had my son-in-law on the ground in a chokehold and Shane was turning blue. My daughter was sobbing ‘they’re killing him’ and somehow she found the strength to hit Jacob in self-defense so he would release Shane.”
It was then, Lisa said, that Cassell turned his anger on her and her daughter, jumping on the hood of their car while swinging a baseball bat and cursing at them.
“I’m a 46 year-old woman with serious health problems, and I tried to defend myself, but he hit me across the lower back with his bat, calling us ‘niggers and river monsters,” said Lisa, who is Anglo. “He pointed at Alyssa and said he would rape her the next time he saw her in Fernley, where she lives.”
Meanwhile, Johnny Bonta was knocked unconscious with a bat, his nose and sinus cavities broken and bleeding, with stab wounds on his neck.
At this point someone must have called the police because they could hear sirens approaching. There was only one problem:
Lisa said Jacob Cassell taunted the family as the sirens approached, telling them, “You hear those cops coming? They’re not going to help you. My daddy is a cop in this town, and nothing is going to happen to me. You fucking niggers are going to jail.”
When cops arrived they refused to take statements from the victims, only interviewing the three white assailants. An ambulance took Lisa, Alyssa and Murray to the hospital. Police arrested Johnny Bonta even though he was bleeding and barely able to stand and took him back to the local jail. The three attackers, including Jacob Cassell, son of retired Sheriff officer Jim Cassell, were released at the scene.
Lisa Bonta assumed her husband was also on the way to the hospital, and panicked when she couldn’t find him. It turned out he was at jail and wasn’t given medical treatment for six days. When Lisa found him she was given the run-around by police and jail officials:
“I asked them to tell me what charges he was being held on and no one would say. They said they gave him the information, but he can’t read or write, so I needed to find out. At first they said there was a bench warrant for an unpaid $367 fine, and when we made arrangements to pay that, they charged him with battery with a deadly weapon, even though it was those boys who had the weapons. The booking papers say we owe $30,367.00. ”
Johnny Bonta remained in jail while Lisa called every day. She says a guard told her that if wanted to receive medical treatment he’d need to “get his Indian doctor”. When Lisa appealed to the Reno Spark Indian Colony, two Indian Health Service doctors agreed to go visit Johnny but were told by jail officials they were not allowed to see him.
Meanwhile, the attackers took to the digital pages of Facebook to get in some bragging rights:
Two hours after attacking the Bontas, Josh Janiszewski of Fernley wrote, “Just laid the fists and boots to some 6′ 5” tongan dude. what you got on little guys?” at 3:13 p.m. When asked if they gave them hell, Josh responded. “Oh we did. That’s for sure!” at 3:48 p.m. “Amen,” said Jacob Cassell at 4:07 p.m.
Jacob’s mother Dee Cassell also commented, “So…who has blood? You guys need to come home to mom?” at 4:48 p.m. She later added that she gave them First Aid. “Better have ur asses at home after I did 1st aid. Don’t piss off women – they r worse than men!” she wrote at 8:00 p.m.
When asked if they got “some good licks” in, Josh said, “sent em to the hospital, they got fucked up man, thats for sure.”
The FBI is looking into the attacks and the Bontas have hired an attorney.
The Sheriff’s office claims the Bonta family pursued the other men and that the fight appeared to be ‘mutual’. They claim the Bontas have not been cooperating with the investigation, and that the article excerpted above is “awfully one-sided”. Given the attackers’ confessions on Facebook, it’s hard to imagine this is true.
And not to sound too old-fashioned, but when a confrontation occurs between three men in their 20’s and a family with a middle-aged man and two women, it’s hard to see how it could have been ‘mutual’ by any stretch of the imagination. Nor is it difficult to grasp why the Bontas aren’t cooperating with police, either, given the circumstances.
Hopefully the FBI investigation goes somewhere. Obviously there are two sides to every story, but those Facebook messages make claims from Dee Cassell, mother of Jacob, ring rather hollow.
Original report here
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