An Ocala man was arrested over the weekend and charged with a hate crime after stabbing and making racial remarks to a man he thought was Mexican.
The victim 45- year-old Harvey Delvalle was hanging out at Terry’s Bar and Grill with his cousin on Saturday night. Delvalle noticed Monte Quinn Niblett- 59 kept starring at him in a threatening manner. According to witnesses he was also making racial slurs toward Delvalle.
“He kept looking at the victim with a mean strange look, but they never exchanged words. They didn’t know each other. There was no history there. The suspect had made a statement that ‘I know exactly how to take care of someone like that, you stab them in the kidney’ and apparently that’s exactly what he did”, said Capt. Jack Pogue, public information officer for the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
Witnesses saw Niblett walk over to Delvalle, pull out a knife and stab him in his lower back. A bouncer tried taking the knife from Niblett , but he refused cutting the bouncer on the arm.
Deputies arrived on scene and took Niblett into custody. Niblett was originally charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, but after hearing about the racial slurs made by the suspect, deputies upgraded his charges to a hate crime which is a first degree felony. Arrest records show that Niblett was arrested in 2001, 2002, and 2003 on battery charges.
He is in the Marion County Jail with a bond set at $10,000.
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