Man, 20, sentenced in hate crime assault

A white Huntington Beach man was sentenced to four years in prison Friday after pleading guilty to hate crimes for yelling at a black woman and attacking her white friend.

John Keihl DeLoach, 20, pleaded guilty to felony hate crime battery causing injury and felony hate crime assault with injury, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

DeLoach stopped his car 3:30 p.m. Sept. 1 outside a Huntington Beach convenience store when he saw a black woman inside. He turned up his stereo that was playing racist, anti-black music, according to the district attorney’s office.

Later in the day, he spotted the same woman inside an apartment complex and yelled racial slurs at her. The woman was with a white man, and DeLoach shouted at them that interracial relationships are wrong.

DeLoach and another unknown man then ran up to the woman and continued yelling at her.

When the woman’s companion stepped in front of her, DeLoach punched him in the face and kicked him twice in the back when he fell, according to the district attorney’s office. DeLoach fled the scene while the woman called the police.

A warrant was issued for his arrest Oct. 1, and officers found him at Overlook Park. Police say he tried to run from the officers and resisted arrest.

He was convicted of residential burglary in 2009, his first strike.

—Britney Barnes