From Mirror staff reports

Police charged two Blair County residents Wednesday in an alleged racist attack on a black man outside Pittsburgh.

Natasha Dawn Bowers, 33, of 405 Water St., Roaring Spring, and Jeremy L. Ingram, 35, of 578 Berwind Road, Hollidaysburg, are among six alleged white supremacist skinheads charged with beating a black bar patron on July 7 in Avalon, northwest of the city.

According to a police report, the group — members of the Keystone State Skinheads or Keystone United gang — had gathered at the Jackman Inn when they took notice of a black visitor and his friend, a cook at the bar. The group used slurs against the patron before confronting him on a deck outside.

“When (the victim) attempted to come back inside, he stated he was hit and a physical fight poured into the pool room in the bar,” Avalon police said in an affidavit. “(The victim) covered up, but was being hit and kicked by the group.”

Witnesses said the victim lay on the ground, unable to get up as the group of seven to 10 people kicked and punched him. He eventually got away and a bartender called the police, witnesses said.

Police arrived as several members of the group — including Bowers and Ingram — allegedly tried to leave.

Officers apprehended some of the suspects at the bar, but Bowers, Ingram and a third suspect allegedly escaped the scene before police from a neighboring department stopped them.

Police quickly identified the suspects as members of an organized group.

“Several of the group members had tattoos stating ‘skinheads’ or with symbols associated with skinheads, and several were wearing shirts with KSS (Keystone State Skinheads) with a doggie head inside a keystone shape,” police wrote.

The logo is the symbol of Keystone United, a statewide white supremacist group founded in Harrisburg as the Keystone State Skinheads.

The group has since changed its name, but according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, it remains one of the most active single-state racist skinhead groups in the country.

“While its members attempt to project a mediagenic image of being part of a new breed of more sophisticated and less spasmodically violent skins, the truth is that the group’s members have been convicted of a string of remarkably violent attacks dating back to at least 1998, ranging from bar brawls to murder,” according to a summary from the center, which tracks hate groups. “Keystone United frequently sponsors white-power picnics and music festivals across Pennsylvania.”

Police did not explain what brought the group together in Avalon; of the six charged, several were from outside Pittsburgh. Witnesses said they did not recognize the group, who, according to one, had “an uneasy feeling about them.”

Bowers and Ingram both face charges of simple assault, conspiracy to commit assault and ethnic intimidation. Preliminary hearings are scheduled for Aug. 30 in Allegheny County.