LEWISTON — A teenager who was beaten badly enough to require hospitalization early Thursday morning may have been the target of a hate crime.

The stepfather of 17-year-old Zachary White said the fight stemmed from earlier confrontations dating back to the election of Barack Obama.

A portion of White’s ear was bitten off during the scrap and he suffered other injuries to his hand and face when he was struck by a beer bottle.

White was released Friday from Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston.

His stepfather, Jason Rodriguez, said a group of teens had harassed White, who is half black, at the Gray-New Gloucester school after Obama was elected.

“There were students who were expressing their discontent,” Rodriguez said. “Zach got a lot of flak at that time.”

So much that he ended up moving back with his biological father in North Carolina, Rodriguez said. White returned to Maine at the start of this week and was almost immediately confronted by the same kids who had harassed him.

According to Rodriguez, his stepson and some of his friends ran into the teens at a party on Thursday.

“They ended up leaving because they heard people talking that Zach was going to get jumped,” Rodriguez said.

White went to the home of a friend in Gray but was followed, Rodriguez said. Outside that home on Lewiston Road, one of the teens who had followed White started a fight.

“Our son was getting the better of him,” Rodriguez said.

But he said other teens joined the fight. One of them struck White in the face with a beer bottle. Another kicked him. The teen White had originally been fighting sunk his teeth into White’s ear, according to a police news release.

“He grabbed Zach by the head and bit off the upper portion of his ear,” Rodriguez said. “The guy spit it out and said ‘Now I’ve got nigger blood in my mouth.'”

White ran into the home of his friend. Rodriguez said his hand had been bitten hard enough to shred tendons and that his jaw was knocked out of line.

Cumberland County sheriff’s detectives were investigating the attack Friday. No arrest had been made.

In a news release, police said White initially refused to answer questions from the deputies and that he refused to press charges.

But Rodriguez said the family met with police on Friday and that suspects are being pursued.

“We’re going to pursue this,” Rodriguez said, “as maturely as possible.”