Fake hate crimes not new

[Big Don]

Fake hate crimes not new
Golden Gate Express
http://xpress.sfsu.edu/archives/news/000424.html
Colleges experiance recent rash of bogus hate incidents
by Minerva Perez, staff writer
November 20, 2003 1:06 PM
Excerpt:


Leah Miller and Allison Jackson are not the first to have faked a hate crime in order to bring awareness to racism on campus.
SF State and the District Attorney's office chose not to file any complaints of vandalism, filing a false report and tampering with evidence against the two students, instead letting the housing disciplinary and student judiciary process deal with the situation.
Miller, 18, told campus police that an unknown person slid a note under the door of her Mary Park Hall dorm room with the word "NIGG" written on it.
Jackson, 18, said "Black Bitches" was written on her Village at Centennial Square room door possibly by her neighbor. After a police investigation, both Miller and Jackson confessed to police that they had written the words themselves.

 

[Big Don]

Of course, the most famous Hate Crime Hoax was perpetrated by Tawana Brawley, who wrote nasty things on herself and smeared crap on herself.
There are plenty of others, like this GWU student:http://media.www.gwhatchet.com/media/storage/paper332/news/2007/11/05/News/Freshman.Who.Reported.Swastikas.Drew.Them.As.Well-3079332.shtml
and this winner, a college professor:http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1748
Or the Baltimore Fireman:http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-te.ci.probe02dec02,0,5563956.story
While, yes, actual crimes do happen, all these hate crime hoaxes are troubling, to say the least.
So are "Hate Crime" laws worth enacting? I found all of these hoaxes, and a dozen or so more in less than two minutes searching.
IMHO, any crime against a person has an element of hate to it, even if both people involved are virtually identical.
Suppose you are a white guy and you get in a fight with a blue person (Hypothetical here...) Were you, in the heat of battle to shout "I'll kick your turquoise ***!" that would be a hate crime and your sentence would be "enhanced" that is lengthened for it. Really, for words? If the crime is assault, sentence people appropriately for assault, don't add idiotic "enhancements" because the criminal was "mean" to the victim, of course he was mean to the victim, he's a criminal!

 

[Marginal]

Yeah, why punish people more for actively targeting and attacking someone for no other reason than because of how they look/act?

 

[Big Don]

Yeah, why punish people more for actively targeting and attacking someone for no other reason than because of how they look/act?

If you assault someone, assault is the crime you should be charged with.

 

[Marginal]

Motive now isn't relevant to a crime?

 

[Big Don]

Motive now isn't relevant to a crime?

Motive, like means and opportunity is a way of determining IF someone could have committed the crime in question. If you are smacked in the face, does it hurt more if the person thinks you are ugly? Assault, battery, murder, rape, etc, all these things are already crimes. Are hate crime laws supposed to be a deterrent? Because, if an enhanced penalty is a deterrent in these cases, why isn't the threat of death universally seen as a deterrent?

 

[Sukerkin]

Don I think makes a very pertinent point on the subject of 'hate crimes' and sentencing for such.

As with many laws that seem to make little 'common' sense, these were enacted with the best of intentions but have lead to little but more friction and the enshrining of divisions within the legislature. That is because, as with all 'official' involvement in things related to race, it is perceived to act only one way i.e. in the favour of the (supposed) minority. A further and more insidious problem is the infamous 'playing of the race card' in which those seeking only the advancement of their own personal agendas will misuse the letter of the law to their advantage - those actions have utterly devalued the legislation.

Of course, 'hate crimes' is a very broad brush indeed as most criminal behaviour is biased on some prejudice or other, especially those that involve violence to another.

On the punishment side of the equation, it is an accepted view that the penalties for crimes only have an impact if they are vastly out of proportion to the offense. I remember using a "Death for Parking Offences" edict as an example in an essay on crime and punishment I wrote many moons ago.

 

[elder999]

So are "Hate Crime" laws worth enacting? !

Yes.

http://www.indyscribe.com/photos/ourtown/lynching.jpg

 

[Big Don]

Yes.

http://www.indyscribe.com/photos/ourtown/lynching.jpg

As I have stated ad naseum, the murders were crimes in themselves.

 

[elder999]

As I have stated ad naseum, the murders were crimes in themselves.

Just as there are special circumstances for those who commit murder in the perpetration of a robbery, or those who kill a police officer, so too are there special circumstances for those who commit various crimes with hatred-whether of race, sexual orientation or religion-as the primary motivation. While the distinction can seem silly to some, and seem tenuous in some cases, in others it is quite obvious. The [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Byrd]James Byrd case, in Jasper, Texas[/URL] comes to mind:

On June 7, 1998, Byrd, 49, accepted a ride from three drunk men named Shawn Allen Berry, Lawrence Russel Brewer, and John William King. He had already known one of them. Instead of taking him home, the three men beat Byrd behind a convenience store, tied him to their pickup truck with a chain tied around his waist, and dragged him about three miles. It is not known whether he was alive during the dragging. Although Lawrence Russell Brewer claimed that Byrd's throat had been slashed before he was dragged, forensic evidence suggests that Byrd had been attempting to keep his head up, and an autopsy suggested that Byrd was alive for much of the dragging and died after his right arm and head were severed when his body hit a culvert. His body had caught a sewage drain on the side of the road resulting in Byrd's decapitation. [2].

King, Berry, and Brewer dumped their victim's mutilated remains in the town's black cemetery, and then went to a barbecue. A wrench with Lawrence Brewers name was found within the area along with a lighter that had the KKK symbol on it. [3].

The next morning, Byrd's limbs were scattered across a very little used road. The police found 75 places littered with Byrd's reamins. State law enforcement officials and Jasper’s District Attorney Guy James Gray determined that since King and Brewer were well-known white supremacists, the murder was a hate crime, and decided to bring in the FBI less than 24 hours after the discovery of Byrd’s remains. One of Byrd's murderers, John King, had a tattoo depicting a black man hanging from a tree, and other tattoos such as Nazi symbols, the words "Aryan Pride," and the patch for the Confederate Knights of America, a gang of white supremacist inmates. [4] In a jailhouse letter to Brewer which was intercepted by jail officials, King expressed pride in the crime and said he realized he might have to die for committing it. "Regardless of the outcome of this, we have made history. Death before dishonor. Sieg Heil!", King wrote. [2]

Brewer and King were sentenced to death. Berry received life in prison.

Numerous aspects of the Byrd murder echo lynching traditions, including mutilation or decapitation, and revelry, such as a barbecue or a picnic, during or after.

As does the Matthew Shepard case, any number of church burnings, vandalisms of Jewish cemeteries, etc., etc., etc.-it often seems to me-and I'm stating my opinion here, not making any accusations-that those who decry hate crime legislation, assert that "all crimes are hate crimes" (whatever happened to greed?), either believe themselves to be immune to "hate crime," or live with the mistaken notions that racism isn't a factor in American society, or that sexual orientation is a "lifestyle choice" that comes with inherent risk.

 

[tellner]

Indeed. They are not new. But they are popular enough that whiny right wing tools file false police reports to get in on the act.

 

[Andrew Green]

Here's a recent one from Princeton:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/061247.php

Some guy sent himself and his group death threats, and beat himself up, claiming it was pro-sex folks doing it because of his conservative, abstinence only views.

... I think he would have felt better if he'd just gone and got laid personally.

 

[Big Don]

Here's a recent one from Princeton:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/061247.php

Some guy sent himself and his group death threats, and beat himself up, claiming it was pro-sex folks doing it because of his conservative, abstinence only views.

... I think he would have felt better if he'd just gone and got laid personally.

He needs to be prosecuted for filing a false police report, as do ALL the rest.
Did you think I would excuse his behavior?

 

[Kennedy_Shogen_Ryu]

Why do some people believe that they can get away with anything anymore?

 

[Andrew Green]

Did you think I would excuse his behavior?

umm... huh?

 

[Marginal]

He needs to be prosecuted for filing a false police report, as do ALL the rest.
Did you think I would excuse his behavior?

The reason why he filed the false report isn't relevant to the discussion. Apparently, it's only relevant when minorities fake the police report. That alone calls for action as it's a step beyond a crime being a crime for the sake of it being a crime.

 

[Big Don]

The reason why he filed the false report isn't relevant to the discussion. Apparently, it's only relevant when minorities fake the police report. That alone calls for action as it's a step beyond a crime being a crime for the sake of it being a crime.

How is it relevant when minorities do it? A crime is a crime, no matter who commits it or why, unless, Mr Orwell, some pigs are more equal than others...

 

[Marginal]

How is it relevant when minorities do it? A crime is a crime, no matter who commits it or why, unless, Mr Orwell, some pigs are more equal than others...

Why did you start this thread again?

 

[Big Don]

Why did you start this thread again?

Because, Mr Orwell, the idea of hate crimes legislation turns my stomach. Hate crime laws are an assault on freedom of not only speech, but thought.
OK, how about this: James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King Jr, this we all know, suppose now, that he committed that murder, not because he was a racist scumbag, but, because he didn't like the way Reverend King drove, would that make it less of a crime? Of course not, you and your ilk, however, would have any crime motivated by a bias more of a crime than others. Both ideas are patently ridiculous, that so many people don't understand that is scary.

 

[Marginal]

Because, Mr Orwell, the idea of hate crimes legislation turns my stomach. Hate crime laws are an assault on freedom of not only speech, but thought.
OK, how about this: James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King Jr, this we all know, suppose now, that he committed that murder, not because he was a racist scumbag, but, because he didn't like the way Reverend King drove, would that make it less of a crime? Of course not, you and your ilk, however, would have any crime motivated by a bias more of a crime than others. Both ideas are patently ridiculous, that so many people don't understand that is scary.

If we fry the racists just for their thoughts, then we won't have to deal with their abhorrent thoughts. Seems win-win.