GUILTY OR - Larnell Bruce, run down & killed in possible hate crime, Gresham, 10 Aug 2016

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A couple who authorities believe zealously chased down a 19-year-old stranger on a Gresham street and bowled him over with their Jeep were indicted Friday on murder charges.

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Police arrived to see the Jeep speeding away and found Bruce bleeding from his head and his ears. He was rushed to Oregon Health & Science University, where he was found to have no brain activity and died three days later, on Aug. 13.

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On Monday morning, Courtier appeared in Multnomah County Circuit Court to be arraigned on charges of murder and hit-and-run driving. Hunt was expected to be arraigned on the same charges Monday afternoon, under the suspicion she "aided and abetted" her boyfriend in the killing.

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The boyfriend-girlfriend pair reportedly admitted to detectives that with Courtier at the wheel, the Jeep pursued Bruce, even making a U-turn when Bruce did. It was obvious he was trying to get away, they reportedly said.

Police say Courtier drove the Jeep up onto the sidewalk to strike Bruce. Part of the chase was caught on surveillance video, although the impact wasn't.

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A white Oregon couple already charged with murder in the death of a black teenager are facing new hate crime charges.

Russell Courtier, who is associated with a white supremacist group operating within Oregon prisons, and his girlfriend, Colleen Hunt, are now accused of mowing down Larnell Bruce outside a convenience store last month because he was black.

Courtier, 38, and Hunt, 35, were charged with murder and failure to perform duties of a driver to injured persons after a grand jury indicted them last month. They were re-indicted Monday.

According to the indictment, Courtier and Hunt intentionally harmed Bruce “because of their perception” of the 19-year-old’s “race and color.”

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Seconds before an African American teenager was fatally struck by a Jeep, chilling surveillance video shows him sprinting away from the white driver accused of killing him.

During a Monday court hearing, a prosecutor played the video taken from cameras at a Gresham 7-Eleven just before midnight on Aug. 10. Prosecutor David Hannon argued that the passenger of the Jeep -- 35-year-old Colleen Catherine Hunt -- should remain in jail pending the outcome of a murder trial.

Hunt is accused of encouraging her boyfriend, 38-year-old Russell Orlando Courtier, of driving the Jeep into Larnell Bruce Jr., 19, after the two men scuffled outside the convenience store.

Hannon told a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge that three eyewitnesses said they heard Hunt shout at her boyfriend to "Run him over!" in the seconds before Courtier allegedly did just that.

Hannon said those witness statements and the video are clear evidence that Hunt is responsible for "aiding and abetting" Courtier in committing murder. In addition to murder, both Hunt and Courtier also have been charged with first- and second-degree intimidation -- which are hate crimes -- for allegedly using Bruce's race as a motivating factor.

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A Multnomah County judge on Thursday found that a Gresham police detective violated the constitutional rights of a man accused of murder because the interrogation continued after the suspect said he wanted to talk to a lawyer.

Circuit Judge Jerry Hodson ruled Det. Aaron Turnage shouldn’t have continued to talk to defendant Russell Courtier, a white man accused of acting on his racial hatred by killing a black teenager with his Jeep. Larnell Bruce Jr., 19, died after Courtier drove into him outside a 7-Eleven convenience store near 188th Avenue and Burnside Street in August 2016, prosecutors say.

The judge’s ruling means statements Courtier made to the detective on video -- including that Courtier was driving the Jeep -- can’t be used during trial, which is scheduled for February.

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