Littleton – Doctors and a couple of titanium plates have put Andrew Sterling’s jaw back in line, but his spirit may need more time.
“I guess my trust has been kind of shattered,” the University of Colorado senior said at his parents’ home. “It’s heartbreaking.”
Sterling’s jaw was broken Friday by an assailant yelling racial slurs. The attack is by far the most violent in a string of racially charged incidents involving CU that began this spring.
Sterling said he knows what it’s like to stand out in a crowd. Growing up in Littleton and then attending the University of Colorado at Boulder, he was often the only black man in the room.
“I’ve never had a problem,” he said. “I’ve always accepted people for who they are, not what they look like. … After this, I don’t know if I feel somewhat naive.”
Sterling’s mother said she is worried about how last week’s attack has changed her son. Already, he recently wondered about how much racism he would encounter at his summer internship in Wisconsin.
“That’s just not the boy I know,” Candace Sterling said. “We are certainly concerned about him physically, but I am really worried about what this means for him mentally.”
Sterling and his friends went out to celebrate Thursday night on what was supposed to be his last night in Boulder for a while. The mechanical engineering student had accepted a research internship that would have begun this week.
About 2 a.m. Friday, Sterling was walking a friend home near campus at the intersection of Arapahoe Road and Broadway when a man in a passing van leaned out the window and shouted swear words and racial slurs at him.
Sterling yelled back, and the car pulled over.
At first, another man in the van got out and apologized for his friend’s behavior.
“He was basically like, ‘I’m sorry, my friend has had a little too much to drink,”‘ Sterling said. “I was mad, but I thought that would be the end of it.”
Even while hearing this apology, the other man stepped out of the van and continued to yell racial epithets at Sterling.
Then, without warning, he punched Sterling in the jaw.
Mia McChesney – the woman Sterling was walking home – said she was horrified.
“Andrew never saw it coming,” she told police in a written statement. “The man kept yelling. All I could hear was the N-word.”
Andrew fell to the ground in a daze. When he tried to get up, the man hit him in the jaw again, then took off with his friends.
“Andrew had been knocked unconscious at that point and was lying on the ground,” McChesney told police. “The crack in his jaw was so bad it looked like he was missing a tooth.”
Sterling said some of the details are fuzzy, but he remembers the hatred.
“That was a first time for me,” he said. “I’ve never been the victim of just pure racism out of nowhere before.”
Police are searching for the attacker but have no suspects, Boulder police spokeswoman Julie Brooks said Tuesday.
Throughout the spring semester, students groups reported a spike in racist graffiti as well as shouts of racial slurs.
In March, acting chancellor Phil DiStefano and other CU officials released a statement saying they were “deeply concerned” about the incidents. Some black students said they would transfer from the school.
Sterling said he doesn’t know what to make of his attack, but he plans to return to school in the fall.
“Part of me feels like there is just more people coming forward,” he said. “I have to say I have loved my time in Boulder.”
McChesney said there needs to be more awareness about racism in Boulder. She said she had not heard about other incidents before Sterling was attacked.
“I think that is part of the problem,” she said. “I think a lot of people just assume, ‘Oh, that wouldn’t happen in Boulder.”‘
For their part, CU officials have been very supportive, Sterling said. DiStefano has called him, and Ron Stump, vice chancellor for student affairs, visited Sterling in the hospital.
“He just offered his condolences,” Sterling said. “He said, ‘When we find this guy – if he is a student – we’ll take care of him.”‘
Then there is Dr. Rodger Kram, who added $500 of his own money to a reward offered for information about the attacker.
“That knocked my socks off,” Sterling said.
The total reward is $2,500, and police, school officials and the Sterling family are urging anyone with information to come forward.
“Hopefully one of the guy’s friends comes to his senses and says, ‘You know, this is wrong,”‘ Sterling said.
Perhaps the man who knew to apologize will realize that he needs to do more, Sterling said. “I’m honestly not sure what to think of him right now,” he said.
The men were driving a red van with gold stripes. The attacker was 18 to 24 years old, was about 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed about 225 pounds. He had dark brown hair.
Sterling said he is still angry but said he will try to move past this – even though his jaw won’t allow him to eat anything more solid than applesauce.
“There are people who go through their entire lives not trusting their neighbors,” he said. “I refuse to be one of those people.”
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 720-929-0893 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
