Wichita man charged with hate crimes for violating rights of Black children, adults
A 30-year-old Wichita man has been indicted on federal hate-crime charges alleging he used weapons, death threats and racist rants to scare Black people and interfere with their federally protected rights, according to a Tuesday news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas.
Austin D. Schoemann, who is white, is facing two counts of interference with federally protected activities, two counts of using interstate communications to make threats and one count each of interference with housing and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence, according to a grand jury indictment. He pleaded not guilty to the six charges on May 26 at his initial appearance and arraignment, court records show.
Federal public defenders representing Schoemann declined to comment on the case Tuesday.
Schoemann is accused in the case of using a gun and racist language to threaten two Black children entering a southeast Wichita QuikTrip on July 27, 2022, “because of their actual and perceived race and color and because they were and had been enjoying” the gas station’s goods and services, according to the release and the indictment, which was filed under seal on May 16.
When a Black woman tried to intervene to stop the discrimination, he threatened her, too, the indictment alleges. The confrontation happened around 9:05 p.m. at the QuikTrip at Harry and Oliver, in the 1600 block of South Oliver, Wichita police records show.
Schoemann also allegedly threatened “to hurt or kill any Black people who visited” the home of a white Wellington woman, in violation of her federally-protected housing rights, the news release and the indictment say. Schoemann often made the threats in person and “would stand outside of (the woman’s) house and shout threats and racial slurs” when he thought the woman had or planned to have Black guests, including accosting them when they arrived, according to the release and the indictment.
Once, he destroyed the windshield of a car “he believed belonged to a Black visitor,” the indictment alleges.
At least twice, Schoemann sent videos and messages to the woman’s family members and others “in which he repeatedly threatened to shoot and kill Black people,” the release says. In one video described in the indictment, Schoemann held a Smith and Wesson assault rifle and two Remington shotguns and made statements, including:
- “Put me in front of a welfare line; I will get rid of poverty”
- “Here’s what I’m going to get it done with”
- “One cap to the head, (racial slur) dead”
- “this (shotgun) is silky smooth and yeah it will kill (racial slur)“
In another message targeting two Black adults, Schoemann vowed “to get rid of every (racial slur) in this town,” the indictment alleges.
“You can tell (the adults) that their last minutes of life are soon,” the indictment says Schoemann said in the message. “All these (racial slur) are going down... I’m a (expletive) white man.”
The federal case isn’t the first filed in relation to the incidents. The Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office in August filed aggravated assault charges against Schoemann over the threats made at the Wichita QuikTrip. He pleaded not guilty on Jan. 26 and is scheduled for a jury trial on June 12, court records show.
Schoemann is also facing a misdemeanor charge in Sumner County District Court for allegedly violating a final protection from abuse order granted to a person with the same initials as the white woman whose federal housing rights were violated.
In a court document related to the Sedgwick County case, Schoemann wrote that he was employed as a mechanic, carpenter and oil field worker. He listed a Wellington address.
Schoemann has a detention hearing in the federal case on Wednesday. A jury trial is scheduled for July 31, court records show.
If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for the interference charges, up to five years for distributing threatening messages online and at least seven years for brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
This story was originally published May 30, 2023 at 10:54 AM.
