Michael Nitz was the stepson of Ronald Ebens and the second man responsible for the 1982 beating death of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American draftsman killed in Highland Park, Michigan. Nitz held Chin in a bear hug while Ebens struck him repeatedly with a baseball bat. He was 23 at the time. He never spent a day in jail for his role in the killing, and he died in 2017 at age 62.
His Role in the Attack on Vincent Chin
On the night of June 19, 1982, Chin was celebrating his upcoming wedding at the Fancy Pants Tavern, a strip club in Highland Park. Ebens, a Chrysler plant foreman, and Nitz were also there. Ebens directed racial slurs at Chin, blaming him for job losses in the auto industry. The confrontation escalated: chairs were thrown, and Chin bloodied Nitz’s face with a punch before the bar manager threw everyone out.1Detroit News. Detroit, Vincent Chin Murder Victim, Officials Plan to Honor
Outside, Ebens and Nitz retrieved a baseball bat from the trunk of their car. They then paid a neighborhood bystander named Jimmy Perry $20 to help them find “the Chinese guy.” Perry later testified that during the search, Ebens and Nitz talked about catching the man and “busting his head.”2Justia. United States v. Ebens, 800 F.2d 1422 They found Chin and his friend Jimmy Choi outside a McDonald’s on Woodward Avenue. Nitz grabbed Chin from behind and held him while Ebens swung the bat. Witnesses, including two off-duty Highland Park police officers, described Ebens swinging “as if going for a home run.”3VincentChin.org. About Vincent Chin suffered severe head injuries and was placed on life support. His mother, Lily Chin, made the decision to disconnect him four days later. Vincent Chin died on June 23, 1982.
Ebens and Nitz appear to have mistaken Chin, who was Chinese American, for Japanese, in a period when Japanese automakers were widely blamed for Detroit’s layoffs. One detail cuts against the economic-grievance story the two men later told: while Nitz had been laid off from an auto plant at some earlier point, he was employed at a furniture company at the time of the killing.4VincentChin.org. Facts vs. Fiction
Why Nitz Never Went to Prison
Nitz and Ebens were initially charged with second-degree murder in Wayne County Circuit Court. Both were allowed to plead no contest to a reduced charge of manslaughter.3VincentChin.org. About Vincent On March 16, 1983, Judge Charles Kaufman sentenced each man to three years of probation and a fine of $3,000 plus court costs. Neither received any jail time.
Kaufman defended the sentence by saying: “These aren’t the kind of men you send to jail. We’re talking here about a man who’s held down a responsible job for 17 or 18 years, and his son is employed and is a part-time student. You don’t make the punishment fit the crime, you make the punishment fit the criminal.”5Museum of Chinese in America. Who Killed Vincent Chin No prosecutor was present at the sentencing to argue against the defense, and no member of Chin’s family had been notified that the hearing would take place.3VincentChin.org. About Vincent
The sentence provoked national outrage among Asian Americans and led directly to the founding of American Citizens for Justice, which pressed the U.S. Department of Justice to bring federal charges.
The Federal Civil Rights Trials
A federal grand jury indicted both men on two counts: conspiracy to deprive Vincent Chin of his civil rights under 18 U.S.C. § 241, and willfully interfering with Chin’s civil rights because of his race while he was using a place of public accommodation under 18 U.S.C. § 245(b)(2)(F).2Justia. United States v. Ebens, 800 F.2d 1422
At the 1984 trial in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the jury acquitted Nitz on both counts. The acquittal was largely attributed to the fact that, unlike Ebens, Nitz had not been heard making racial statements during the incident.6Michigan Bar Journal. Vincent Chin Case Ebens was convicted on the civil rights count and sentenced to 25 years.
In 1986, the Sixth Circuit reversed Ebens’s conviction in United States v. Ebens, 800 F.2d 1422, citing evidentiary errors that had denied him a fair trial.2Justia. United States v. Ebens, 800 F.2d 14227Los Angeles Times. Ebens Acquitted of Federal Civil Rights Charges8American Citizens for Justice. History The result was that neither man served any prison time for Vincent Chin’s death.
The Civil Settlement
The Chin estate also pursued a civil wrongful death suit. In early March 1987, Nitz settled with the estate, agreeing to pay $50,000 in cash plus $30 per week for ten years.9Los Angeles Times. Vincent Chin Civil Settlement Nitz ultimately fulfilled that obligation.10Legal News. Vincent Chin Civil Settlement Status Ebens’s separate settlement, for $1.5 million, went largely unpaid; he relocated to Nevada, and by the mid-2010s the accumulated debt with interest was estimated at more than $8 million.11NBC News. Judge Rules Against Man Responsible for Vincent Chin’s Death
Later Life and Death
After the legal proceedings ended, Michael Nitz largely disappeared from public view. He married Rebecca “Becky” Nitz, and the two were married for forty years. He had three children and seven grandchildren. His obituary described him as a “Jack of all trades and Master of all” and listed memberships in the Ohio Trucking Maintenance Counsel, the Central Ohio Transportation Group, the Ohio Public Transit Authority, and Powell United Methodist Church.12Maeder Quint Tiberi Funeral Home. Michael L. Nitz Obituary
Nitz died on January 11, 2017, at age 62, at the James Cancer Hospital, following a battle with acute myeloid leukemia. His obituary made no mention of the Vincent Chin case.
Why His Name Still Surfaces
Nitz’s name endures because the case that bears Vincent Chin’s is treated as a foundational moment in the Asian American civil rights movement. The killing and the sentence that followed united previously disparate Asian ethnic communities into what scholars and organizers describe as the first pan-Asian American advocacy movement in the United States, and it helped shape how U.S. law defines hate crimes and their victims.13Asian Americans Advancing Justice. 35 Years After Vincent Chin14AAPI History Hub. From Outrage to Organizing The 1987 documentary Who Killed Vincent Chin?, directed by Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Peña, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary and has since been added to the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry.15PBS. Who Killed Vincent Chin Members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus drew explicit connections in 2022 between the anti-Asian scapegoating of the 1980s and the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic.16U.S. House of Representatives, CAPAC. CAPAC Members Commemorate 40th Anniversary Nitz is a permanent part of that history as the man who held Vincent Chin still.