Four hours.

It’s a period of time Tim McClellan, the father of 17-year-old Shane McClellan, has trouble imagining. For four hours Shane was beaten and tortured, whipped with his own belt and burnt with cigarettes, by two men in a racially charged attack on the night of May 25th, 2010 in West Seattle.

One of the attackers, 22-year-old Ahmed Mohamed, signed a plea deal in December and was sentenced last Friday, Jan. 21 to just under six years in prison for first degree robbery and malicious harassment by Judge Carol Shapira. His alleged accomplice in the attack, Jonathan Baquiring, 21, will go to trial on Feb. 22.

“We targeted McClellan because he was a different race than we are,” Mohamed wrote in his plea deal. Shane is white, Mohamed is black and Baquiring is Pacific Asian.

Tim took the stand last Friday in Mohamed’s sentencing.

“It was very hard for me and I got up to speak to the Judge and it was very difficult, especially since it was the first time I had seen Ahmed,” he said.

“I told her (Judge Shapira) the huge impact it had made on our family and the length and duration of the beating was far more than an assault and I couldn’t imagine, you know, what he had gone through. I mean, I start thinking about (how) you wait five minutes for a bus and it seems like a long time. I can’t imagine even what five minutes of being beaten is like. Then multiply that by four hours with people coming up with different ways to torture you.”

As for the outcome of the first sentencing, feelings are mixed for the McClellan family.

“Well of course, I’m speaking as a father, I would have liked a more severe sentence … I understand that he was taking a plea but I thought they were being lenient,” Tim said. “And on the other hand I was thinking, well, maybe showing him (Mohamed) some lenience might teach him some lenience, something he hadn’t practiced in the past. He wasn’t lenient with my son.”

Tim also spoke about Shane’s reaction to Mohamed’s sentencing.

“He’s happy with the outcome, you know, that he’s (Mohamed) off the street, that he has been sentenced for it but you know, he wasn’t looking for any retribution or anything. He’s not a vindictive type of person so he didn’t have a comment on how lenient or severe the sentencing was or anything.”

In Friday’s sentencing, Mohamed’s attorney Kevin McCabe was quoted in a Seattle Times story by Christine Clarridge as saying, “He (Mohamed) is extremely sorry he committed this act. It was Mr. Mohamed’s first experience with alcohol and an extremely unfortunate type of alcohol to have for your first run-in.”

Shane’s attackers were drinking Four Loko that night, an energy and caffeine-laden malt liquor that was banned (in its caffeinated form) in Washington in November.

“I found that a joke,” Tim said of the Four Loko defense. “I was getting pretty angry with his lawyer blaming it on Four Loko and it being his first interaction with alcohol, like it would never happen again and it would have never happened (except) for his choice in alcohol. The only thing I can think of was, ‘insulted.’ It was the way you feel if someone was sitting there lying right to your face. You feel insulted, like, ‘I’m not that stupid.’”

In response to Mohamed’s apology in court, Tim said, “I would like to believe his apology, the Christian in me wants to, I’m hoping in the end he’ll come out a better person – he has to.”

As Mohamed was led out of court after receiving his 69 month sentence, Tim said Mohamed mouthed something to him that he could not understand.

“Someone asked me after it was over if I heard his apology as he was leaving,” he said. “I didn’t know if it was an apology or if it was a threat, you know, because I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I would like to believe it was the former.”

When Mohamed’s co-defendant takes the stand in February, Tim said he will definitely be there for the trial.

For the McClellan family, speaking about Shane’s attack is a rarity and Tim said they tend to focus on the positive things in life. He said Shane is doing surprisingly well in the wake of his torture.

“We don’t discuss it that often, it’s not a rule, it’s just something I don’t bring up and we don’t talk about it that much,” he said. “As much as I can feel his pain and stuff, I don’t tell him that because he knows, but I just don’t want to bring it up and make him think about it again.”

To read more on Shane McClellan’s attack, check out these Herald articles:
One of Shane McClellan’s attackers pleads guilty, gets just under six years behind bars for West Seattle attack

Charges filed against Shane McClellan’s alleged attackers