Ronald Madis Ebens (born October 30, 1939) is an American convicted killer. Ebens, with his stepson Michael Nitz as an accomplice, killed Vincent Chin, a Chinese American man, on June 19, 1982. This led to a federal indictment for violating Chin's civil rights, but only after public outrage at the probationary sentence and small fine imposed by Michigan Third Circuit Court Judge Charles Kaufman. Ebens was found guilty on one count of violating Chin's civil rights and was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but the conviction was overturned on appeal.
 Ronald Ebens was born on October 30, 1939, in Dixon, Illinois and raised in Oak Park, Michigan. He served 2½ years in Army Air Defense School. On August 25, 1965, Ebens started work at Chrysler Corporation's plant in Belvidere, Illinois, and was promoted to salaried trim foreman on November 8, 1965. He married Juanita Ebens in 1971, his second marriage after a brief marriage at the age of 18.
 Ebens' work with Chrysler brought him to Detroit, Michigan, where he owned a bar, Ron's Place, located on Van Dyke Avenue during the 1970s. In 1982, Ebens was a superintendent at the Warren Truck Assembly Plant.
 The fight which would lead to the killing of Vincent Chin started at The Fancy Pants Club, when Chin took umbrage at a remark that Ebens made to a stripper who had just finished dancing at Chin's table (Chin was having a bachelor party, as he was to be married eight days later). According to an interview by Michael Moore for the Detroit Free Press, Ebens told the stripper, "Don't pay any attention to those little fuckers, they wouldn't know a good dancer if they'd seen one."
 Ebens claimed that Chin walked over to Ebens and Michael Nitz and threw a punch at Ebens' jaw without provocation. Witnesses at the ensuing trial testified that Ebens also got up and said, "It's because of you little motherfuckers that we're out of work," referring to the Japanese auto industry, particularly Chrysler's increased sales of captively imported Mitsubishi models rebadged and sold under the Dodge and now-defunct Plymouth brands and Nitz's layoff from Chrysler in 1979, despite the fact that Chin was of Chinese descent, not Japanese. It is disputed whether Ebens uttered other racial slurs.
 The fight escalated as Nitz shoved Chin in defense of his stepfather, and Chin countered. At the end of the scuffle, both Ebens and Nitz were sprawled on the floor, with Nitz suffering a cut on his head from a thrown chair. Chin and his friends left the room, while a bouncer led Ebens and Nitz to the restroom to clean up the wound. While they were there, Robert Siroskey, one of Chin's friends, came back inside to use the restroom. He is said to have apologized for the group, stating that Chin had a few drinks because of his bachelor's party. However, Siroskey did not actually admit to saying that, for it was Ebens and Nitz who claimed that Siroskey had apologized to both of them on behalf on Vincent. Ebens and Nitz had also been drinking that night, although not at the club, which did not serve alcohol. Jimmy Choi also reentered the club to look for Siroskey. When Ebens and Nitz left the club, Chin and his friends were still waiting outside for Siroskey. Chin challenged Ebens and Nitz to continue the fight in the parking lot, at which point Nitz retrieved a baseball bat from his car and chased Chin and his friends out of the parking lot. Ebens and Nitz searched the neighborhood for 20 to 30 minutes and even paid another man $20 to help them look for Chin, before finding him at a McDonald's restaurant. Chin tried to escape but was held by Nitz while Ebens repeatedly bludgeoned Chin with a baseball bat until Chin's head cracked open. A policeman who witnessed the violent beating said Ebens was swinging the bat like he was swinging "for a home run." Chin was rushed to Henry Ford Hospital and was comatose on arrival; he died after four days in a coma on June 23, 1982. Ebens was arrested for the initial assault. After Chin's death, Ebens and Nitz were charged with second-degree murder.
 In June 2012, just before the 30th anniversary of the killing and in the wake of a prominent retrospective opinion piece in The New York Times, Ebens expressed regret on a phone interview from his home in Nevada with writer Emil Guillermo, saying that killing Chin was "the only wrong thing I ever done [sic] in my life."