A little over a month ago, I wrote a post about a Muslim youth who had cut the hair of a Sikh peer, during a fight in their high school bathroom. You may recall it– I asked you if this was a hate crime and many of you responded, some by saying “yes”, others “no”. The utility of hate crimes legislation was also debated; weren’t all violations worthy of condemnation? What if penalizing hate crimes really meant prosecuting thought crimes?
I thought of all of this, today. I was moderating a link on our news tab by clicking it, to make sure it worked. This takes less than a second, but sometimes, I linger for an extra moment on whatever news site you’ve submitted, especially if there’s another story which captures my attention (I’m powerless against the “most emailed” list).
“Survivor of Hate Crime Takes Own Life“, it said. Or something similar. I realized that David Ritcheson, 18, was dead, a year after he probably should have been. A comment from the post I referenced above came back to me:
I wouldn’t classify this as a crime… a little hair cut doesn’t hurt. He wasn’t sodomized for crying out loud. Plus, these were kids. Kids can be more sadistic than adults at times. Its actually somewhat normal for a pre-teen to be sadistic… part of the maturation process. This was peer pressure, not a hate crime. Whoever cut the Sikh fellow’s hair did to retain his status among the peer group. [Link]
Well, David was sodomized, for crying out loud. He wasn’t just sexually assaulted, he was brutalized. Stomped. Burned. Kicked. And as he lay on the ground, naked and dying, his attackers poured bleach on him. Why? He tried to kiss a 12-year old white girl, who was not related to either of his murderers.
Who was David?
David Ritcheson had been a running back on the Klein Collins High School football team. He was homecoming prince as a freshman and had a girlfriend. He “hung out with the good crowd,” he says, and had every reason to look forward to returning last fall.
But once classes resumed, Ritcheson was overwhelmed by the looks he got everywhere he went — in the halls, in the cafeteria, in classrooms.
The looks all said the same thing: You’re a victim, how do you deal with it? Everybody knew what had happened to him, and the attack, he says, “was just so degrading.”
In a case that drew national attention, Ritcheson, a Mexican-American, was severely assaulted last April 23 by two youths while partying in Spring. One of the attackers, a skinhead named David Tuck, yelled ethnic slurs and kicked a pipe up his rectum, severely damaging his internal organs and leaving Ritcheson in the hospital for three months and eight days — almost all of it in critical care. [Houston Chronicle]
Here are his own words, which were uttered at a hearing on H.R. 1592, The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007; he testified, in an effort to wrest some good from his pain.
I appear before you as a survivor of one of the most despicable, shocking, and heinous acts of hate violence this country has seen in decades. Nearly one year ago on April 22, 2006, I was viciously attacked by two individuals because of my heritage as a Mexican-American…a minor disagreement between me and the attackers turned into the pretext for what I believe was a premeditated hate crime. This was a moment that would change my life forever. After I was surprisingly sucker punched and knocked out, I was dragged into the back yard for an attack that would last for over an hour. Two individuals, one an admitted racist skinhead, attempted to carve a swastika on my chest. Today I still bear that scar on my chest like a scarlet letter. After they stripped me naked, I was burned with cigarettes and savagely kicked by this skinhead’s steel toed army boots. After burning me in the center of the forehead, the skinhead attacker was heard saying that now I looked like an Indian with the red dot on my forehead.
Moreover, the witnesses to the attack recalled the two attackers calling me a “wetback†and a ‘spic†as they continued to beat me as I lay unconscious.
Weeks later I recall waking up in the hospital with a myriad of emotions, including fear and uncertainty. Most of all, I felt inexplicable humiliation. Not only did I have to face my peers and my family, I had to face the fact that I had been targeted for violence in a brutal crime because of my ethnicity. This crime took place in middle-class America in the year 2006. The reality that hate is alive, strong, and thriving in the cities, towns, and cul-de-sacs of Suburbia, America was a surprise to me. America is the country I love and call home. However, the hate crime committed against me illustrates that we are still, in some aspects, a house divided. I know now that there are young people in this country who are suffering and confused, thirsting for guidance and in need of a moral compass. These are some of the many reasons I am here before you today asking that our government take the lead in deterring individuals like those who attacked me from committing unthinkable and violent crimes against others because of where they are from, the color of their skin, the God they worship, the person they love, or the way they look, talk or act.
I believe that education can have an important impact by teaching against hate and bigotry. In fact, I have encouraged my school and others to adopt the Anti-Defamation League’s No Place for Hate® program. If these crimes cannot be prevented, the federal government must have the authority to support state and local bias crime prosecutions. [Hearing on H.R. 1592]
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Whither hate crimes legislation? Two of you discussed it, on the “Rape of the Lock” thread.
Affirmative:
why are “hate crimes” punished harsher than other crimes? I owuld think the punishment should be the same thing for the same crime regardless? Any lawyers here that can explain that better?
There are different justifications for hate crimes. It terrorizes the group to which the victim belongs because the perpetrator targeted the victim because of his membership in that particular group. It has the component of additional malice beyond the ones already codified in law. It also comes handy in cases of religious discrimination, for example, in the absence of this law, yanking off a cap from a persons head would be punishable at the same level as yanking off a hijab from a Muslim womans head or a turban from a Sikh mans head. [link]
Negative:
…more fundamentally, hate crimes are thought crimes…ie, they give extra punishment due to a person’s ideas and beliefs. now the particular beliefs in question are repulisive so few complain, but if the govt is allowed to give extra punishment to racists, could they do the same for communists? how about feminists? first they came for the racists…slippery slope.
there are first ammedment issues here and while such laws may pass constitutional muster they certainly go against her spirit. this is not the american way. it’s orwells. [link]
Is it?
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More than anything, he didn’t want to stand out, to be identified as “that kid“, the one who was sodomized and attacked so brutally. He required 30 surgeries, all of which couldn’t put David back together again. He was an imperfect teenager, a football player, a former homecoming prince, a model in the school fashion show. The last thing he wanted to be was a spokesperson. But he stepped up, to address Congress:
despite the obvious bias motivation of the crime, it is very frustrating to me that neither the state of Texas nor the federal government was able to utilize hate crime laws on the books today in the prosecution of my attackers. I am upset that neither the Justice Department nor the FBI was able to assist or get involved in the investigation of my case because “the crime did not fit the existing hate crime laws.†Today I urge you to take the lead in this time of needed change and approve the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007â€. I was fortunate to live in a town where local law enforcement authorities had the resources, the ability — and the will – to effectively investigate and prosecute the hate violence directed against me. But other bias crime victims may not live in such places. I ask you to provide authority for local law enforcement to work together with federal agencies when someone is senselessly attacked because of where they are from or because of who they are. Local prosecutors should be able to look to the federal government for support when these types of crimes are committed. Most importantly, these crimes should be called what they are and prosecuted for what they are, “hate crimesâ€! [Hearing on H.R. 1592]
David was straight, but he worked for justice, for all:
The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, for which Ritcheson testified, would include protection for gay individuals in the statutes that now apply to acts of violence against individuals on the basis of race, religion color or national origin. The new act would augment local law enforcement with federal resources. The bill passed in the House in May and is being considered in the Senate.
This and other hate crime measures affirm the value of the lives of individuals who have been the targets of hate-filled crimes and affirm that the psychological dimensions of these crimes have a different impact on society as well as on the victims.
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, hopes to name the hate crimes bill “David’s Law.” An equally fitting legacy would be a brighter glimmer of recognition throughout the culture that the aftereffects can be as devastating as the trauma itself. [Houston Chronicle]
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Many rape survivors don’t dare come forward, because of their shame. That shame is magnified if you are a man who was assaulted. David was practically a child.
“it was just really hard to hold your head up, even to walk outside with everyone almost in the world knowing what happened.” That anguish may have contributed to his decision to leap Sunday from a cruise ship to his death in the Gulf of Mexico.
“I shouldn’t care what people think or say. It’s just the fact that everyone knows I’m the kid. It was bigger than Houston. It was bigger than Texas. It was bigger than America. Everybody in the world knew what had happened and everybody knew the details of it.”
In the end, it was bigger than he was; in the end, it meant his end, by suicide.
On Sunday, he was pronounced dead after being pulled aboard the Ecstasy, a cruise ship en route from Galveston to Cozumel, Mexico.
A spokesman for Carnival Cruise Lines said several witnesses saw Ritcheson jump from an upper deck of the ship Sunday morning. Officials aboard the Ecstasy notified the Coast Guard before recovering Ritcheson’s body. [ABC News]
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What motivates the perpetrators of such vile, naked hatred?
It was a level of rage and fury that could prompt his attackers to drag the victim, a 16-year-old Hispanic youth, out of a party for the trivial offense of trying to kiss a 12-year-old girl, to strip him and beat him into submission, using steel-toed boots. They made deep slashes into his chest, investigators said. Then they drove a sharpened plastic PVC pipe into his anus so deep that his internal organs were damaged. And as the heartless attackers carried out this savagery, they spewed racial slurs.
The suspects are both Anglo. Neighbors told the Houston Chronicle one of them, David Henry Tuck, 18, has swastikas painted on the fence at his home. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Tuck flew a swastika flag. Also under arrest is Keith Robert Turner, 17. Kids described both as “skinheads.”
The 16-year-old victim, David Ritcheson, is popular at his high school, played football and was once featured in a fashion layout in the school yearbook. But the intent of the attack, as has been seen in other such assaults, was to strip him of his personal identity and degrade him to an object that could be insulted and sodomized…history tells us it is far easier to target those who are different in appearance, in background and in language. And we know that racial slurs that stereotype people and deny individuality are but the first step to giving license for barbarity against a whole people, something that would never be countenanced against a person with a face. [Corpus Christi Caller]
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Thank you for the opportunity to tell my story. It has been a blessing to know that the most terrible day of my life may help put another human face on the campaign to enact a much needed law such as the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007â€. I can assure you, from this day forward I will do what ever I can to help make our great county, the United States of America, a hate free place to live. [Hearing on H.R. 1592]
Oh, David. In your desire to emancipate yourself from your nightmare, you may have done just that, by inpsiring compassion and creating awareness. I just wish we hadn’t lost you, that you hadn’t lost you, in the process. May your memory be eternal, may you finally know peace.
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An UPDATE I wish I had never come across:
I didn’t think this story could get any worse, but it turns out that despite the three hours I spent researching/writing this post, what I gleaned was not the whole, sickening truth. Not even close. I am grateful to XicanoPwr at !Para Justicia y Libertad!, for publishing the rest of the vomit-inducing, soul-crushing story (via the 2007 Jan/Feb edition of Journal of the Texas District & County Attorneys Association, which changed David’s name because he was a minor– that’s why it is in parentheses below). WARNING- THIS IS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC:
Tuck and Turner began kicking, beating, and stomping (David), Tuck wearing black, steel-toe boots, one of which was emblazoned with a swastika. Yelling “Beaner!†and other racial epithets, Tuck inflicted most of the damage. After one especially vicious kick, Tuck shouted “White power!†and gave a Nazi salute. Unable to fight back or defend himself in any way, (David) just lay there and took it, mumbling and groaning occasionally. Undeterred, or more accurately encouraged by the lack of resistance, Tuck and Turner began stripping off (David)’s clothing.
“If you had any white in you, you would be helping me,†Tuck told Gus. He then pulled out a silver pocketknife. When Gus started to protest, Tuck only glared at him. “Don’t bitch out on me now,†he told the frightened Gus, and began slashing at (David)’s bare chest. He was making superficial wounds, almost as if he was trying to draw something. Detectives would later come to believe Tuck was attempting to carve a swastika.
Taking the cigarette, [Tuck] began touching the tip of it to (David)’s bare skin, burning him on the arms, legs, back, and buttocks. Turner lit up another cigarette and joined in. Finally, Turner put the cigarette out right between (David)’s eyes. Tuck chuckled, “Now he looks like a f***ing Hindu!â€
(David) could no longer speak because Tuck had stomped on his throat hard enough to break one of his tracheal rings. All he could manage was a weak, agonized moan. He lay there a few feet from the patio, naked and helpless. And now it was Turner who had an idea.
Walking over to the patio table where Gus was, Turner grabbed a pipe standing in the center of it. It was a white pipe made of PVC that served as the lower half of some long-forgotten umbrella. … The lower half abruptly tapered to a sinister, conical point. Turner carried it over to where (David) lay facedown on the ground.
Squatting beside him, Turner shoved the white pole between (David)’s buttocks and into his rectum, making sure that the sharp point was inside the anus. He then looked up at Tuck and, holding the pole with the blunt end angled upward, motioned with his head. Taking the invitation, Tuck viciously stomped on the blunt end of the pole with the bottom of his combat boot as hard as he could. (David) moaned sharply. Turner laughed. Tuck stomped the pole a second time even harder. Doctors later estimated that the pointed pipe went 8–10 inches inside (David)’s body, rupturing his bladder and colon in the process.
While Turner tossed (David)’s shoes over the fence and began burning his clothing in a barbecue grill, Tuck returned to a frightened Gus. “Do you have any bleach?†he demanded. “We’ve got to get rid of the evidence.†Gus shook his head no, but Tuck knew where the laundry room was and went inside to look for himself. He returned with a full bottle and a warning glare for Gus. “If you tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you,†he said, walking to the edge of the backyard where (David) lay, the pole still inside him. Turner joined him there.
Taking the cap off the bleach, Tuck poured the bottle into (David)’s face, eyes, and open mouth. He poured bleach all over (David)’s naked body, poured it down the pipe and into his traumatized abdomen as well. (Even seven months later at the trial, (David) still had visible areas of skin the bleach had burned off. The physicians who treated him did not think that bleach could account for the reaction they saw in (David)’s immune system. They believe other chemicals, perhaps something like acetone, were poured on and in him.)
I am weeping.
When I originally wrote this post, I remember thinking over and over again that I was so grateful that David had passed out and that he remembered none of this brutality. What is haunting is, some say that he was starting to recall what happened to him, and that would more than explain why he took his life, at least to me. I can’t fathom such evil, I can’t believe that it happened now, and here, and not during some other, primitive time, in some other, faraway place. But Hitler inspired these two monsters and they tried their best to emulate his despicable hatred towards “others”.
I don’t know if David was Catholic. I don’t know if it matters, it probably doesn’t. I am Christian. I’m not Catholic, I’m Orthodox, but I spent my life in Catholic schools where we were constantly told that suicide was a sin. Well, I believe two things now:
1) David lived through that hellish night so he could bear witness. Why else would he be spared the mercy of death, especially when there were so many things inflicted upon him, which might cause it?
2) Unlike what those somber nuns repeated ad infinitum, this can’t be a sin, this wholly understandable desire to escape such all-encompassing pain. Even Christ himself wasn’t tortured like this, before his crucifixion. That’s sick. It is sick when I think that some way of dying/being murdered is WORSE than being nailed to a cross.
You may disagree or scoff at what I just typed, but even if you are an atheist, an agnostic or whatever else, I know you share my horror at what this poor child was subjected to at the hands of two heartless, depraved demons.
I just can’t stop crying, or shaking. My heart hurts. What is wrong with us? How could this happen?
hypertree, are you saying that intent can only exist if the action was completed? legally speaking, that is not true. attempt to commit a crime (and the intent to commit the crime) can be inferred from several actions by the perpretator, without the crimne actually having been committed. add to this mistake of fact, mistake of law etc and these factors comprise how far the perpetrator did, and was willing to, go towards completion of the crime. furthermore, drugs, sanity etc go towards negating intent/state of mind.
What have all you unpatriots (what, you prefer Benedict Arnolds?) been doing all day commenting on Uncle Sam’s birthday? Me, I did what you do at any party for somebody’s 231st, get drunk, and help the birthday old boy hitch up his pants (or his border fence, as he likes to call it) up to his chest (that’s where Jesusland ends, apparently).
muralimannered, thanks for that compendium of conservative clowns. The fact is the Dobbs was 10x off on leprosy (it was 7000 cases in 30 years). I also love Olbermann – very funny, and always willing to go for the low blow – the only way to deal with some of these morons. The existence of these idiots on national TV and radio makes the hypocrisy and mock self-righteousness about Imus and the odd shock jock so obvious.
Actually, insulting anyone is fair game with free speech protections in all, doesn’t mean it’s civil nor misguided. Lot of those people you talk about don’t have the opportunity to venture beyond their little world either – it happens all over the world. Folks in rural communities live and die in their little village. And most ‘hicks’ I’ve come into contact with are quite tolerable. Many times quite warm and curious.
The dudes who assaulted this kid were quite deliberate racists, if you believe the reports of them being skinheads and parading nazi swastikas around. So, how about calling a duck a duck, which in this case would be calling the douchebags racist neo-nazi skinheads. Not hicks.
The word reminds me of a William Safire op-ed in the lead-up to the Iraq war. Of course, Safire, the nominal conservative opinion writer on the NYT payroll for the longest time, was once again on the right side of history, like his speechwriting for Nixon and then Agnew (“nattering nabobs of negativism”, anyone?), his unproven expose on Carter’s head of the OMB (maybe he was indeed right on that one, don’t know details), and then his support for the Iraq war. Some people should just stick to commenting on the English language.
But people do. I tried to carve out a new niche as his assholiness Sri Sri Rahul, but nobody gave me a fair shake. Except for one devotee.
In all the examples given, the extra punishment for intent are for intents that are inherently criminal: terrorism, rape, stealing, invasion of privacy (snooping), tealing again (financial gain)…
No, “financial gain” is not equivalent to stealing. It’s completely legal to get life insurance benefits when your spouse dies – it is not legal to kill them in order to get that money faster. It is perfectly legal to pay somebody to do a job, it is not legal to pay them to kill another person.
intent can exist pre-action, but you’re criminally liable only on action (actus reus) in combination with guilty mind (mens rea). How do we prosecute imminent crimes then? That has to do with how this action is defined. If a burglar enters your home with a bag and some tools, but you catch him while he’s entering, his literal action is just trespassing, but his actus reus is robbery, and he is punished as such.
So in this case, the criminal liability comes from deducing the actus reus from existing partial actions, not just by the doctrine of Mens Rea and intent in the mind.
To summarize: You cannot prosecute on intent alone, unless you can prove and deduce he would also have acted upon that intent. Otherwise we would have all minority report and 1984 on our hands.
“the perpetrators will be at a higher risk for being raped–they are white, presumably not adepts of BJJ, nor very large/menacing. It is ironic that the likeliest agents of this violation will be white as well.” actually, the article says “likeliest agents” are more likely to be African American (or black).
What a heartbreaking post.
On the question of hate crimes laws: I have no problem in principle with hate crimes legislation, but it seems like it’s really only going to do much good after the crime has already been committed. I’m not sure how much of a deterrent they really are, just as the death penalty has been shown to have very little power to deter crime. I’m all for punishing these assholes, but I think this has to happen in conjunction with real steps toward stopping these crimes from happening in the first place.
This will probably draw some ire, but… I’m not for vigilante justice, but I can’t say I’d mourn if a few swastika-waving neo-nazis were bodily kicked out of their community. In Pennsylvania, there have been a few proud instances where anti-Klan protestors have literally run the racists out of town– and despite the lack of violence, they haven’t shown their faces in those towns again. It seems like community organization might be a better option in some instances than trying to change the law in ways that can be twisted and misused.
Finally– this is another reason why we need more resources for male victims of sexual assault! There are so many out there, and so few ways to get help to them, or even safe spaces for them to talk about what’s happened to them.
Since reading this post this morning, I am afraid and sad. Afraid for what awaits my 2 sons. Sad for what this poor boy endured.I have been busying myself with work, revved up the elliptical trainer during lunch to a dizzying cadence, and still I am not able to fight back the tears.
Hypertree. Interesting. But is bigotry a state of mind or a belief system? Pre-meditation and the other examples of intent that have been given strike me as particular states of mind that are present in every individual, criminal or not. Whereas bigotry and raciam is a belief system, a perverted one no doubt, but has more in common with other philosophies or systems of thought than it does with all the other examples of criminal intent.
This is an interesting question… does the question of organization play into it? I mean, was there a conspiracy to commit the crime? And would it matter, legally, if the conspirators were part of an organized racist/hate group– or for that matter an informal one? I’m not sure if these particular racist assholes were waving nazi flags on their own or not… Would membership in a group that explicitly promotes/encourages hate crimes makes one more or less liable in this sort of case?
Manju,
The law also doesn’t discriminate between a “state of mind” and a “belief system,” and I’m not sure I see how it matters. While it’s an interesting point to ponder, it’s kind of irrelevant. We don’t make laws so that they’re all even and parallel and feel nice and tidy in your head. We make laws based on what society considers criminal.
The point is that hate crimes attack a person’s sense of self. They’re literally dehumanizing. That is why the hate crime laws exist. It’s not enough to just punish the beating, the crime, the rape, the murder. In this case the idea is that mens rea and attendant circumstances go beyond the literal action. Actus reus, in this case, is greater than in the case of a “normal” rape or burglary or homicide. Society, and the individual in question, suffer greater.
Therefore the punishment should be commensurately greater.
So goes the argument.
the ADL is a hell of a hypocritical group to be endorsing this kind of thing. at the same time they promote tolerance and hate crime laws they also feed profiles of prominent (read: not radical, just prominent)local muslims all over the country to local law enforcement agencies for the sake of “vigilant” law enforcement; on one hand promoting the rights of all and on the other working to curb those of others. if you lived in the detroit area you would know this to be quite the mainstream. even attending an interfaith forum is enough to be “remembered”, so to speak.
And if the idea of knowing intent–and using that interpretation of intent, however clumsy it may be–to prosecute and sentence crimes disturbs you, consider how easy defending crimes would be without it. Every defense would be automatism: I was drunk, I was sleepwalking, I had no idea what I was doing. Mens rea no longer applies.
Only the literal action would apply, and it would be easy to argue that it should carry no weight. Actus reus would be based on the literal action itself.
That we prosecute and sentence crimes differently based in part on intent is hardly a big shocker, or unfair, or a slippery slope leading to some draconian Orwellian / Spielbergian future where we prosecute and sentence based ONLY on intent. As hypertree pointed out above, it is the combination of the criminal act plus mens rea that determines actus reus.
And Sarah, I don’t think that hate crime laws were enacted to serve as a deterrent to hate crimes. Again, y’all lawyerly types correct me if I’m wrong…but in places like Bosnia, for instance, the idea behind hate crimes laws becomes much clearer.
My questions is (in the U.S.) are hate crimes laws only used for sentencing? Do you prosecute the crime, and then sentence as a hate crime? Or is it considered a hate crime, and prosecuted differently?
And here’s the other side of the malevolent slippery slope, already slip-slidin’ away.
My understanding is yes. First you prosecute for the crime itself, then you have to provide additional evidence to prosecute said crime as a hate crime (is this a joinder? laywerly-types, please correct me) so that it is eligible for harsher sentencing.
My understanding is that it is really hard to prosecute (successfully) a hate crime. In some states the regular crime sentence is more severe than a hate crime addition, though, and given the additional work and difficulty in charging a hate crime, many just opt to push for the former.
Hey– I was really touched by this commentary Anna. I’m sort of a lurker on SM don’t really post but I think it’s an important issue and, man, I can’t imagine what kind of dark valley David had to cross but he’s got an important story and hopefully some sort of legacy grows from this. I submitted this story onto Digg.com so any people that frequent that website should def. digg it to the top and get some exposure for what was a pretty somber post-4th of July article.
http://digg.com/offbeat_news/The_importance_of_Hate_Crime_legislation
In the american/classic liberal framework, we don’t base laws simply on what society considers criminal. There are limits, most notably the bill of rights. society and government is severely restricted in order to preserve the inalienable rights of man, including freedom of thought. in this worldview, “belief systems” are protected equally, with the church of the flying spaghetti monster getting equal protection to the catholic church.
but now a particular belief system is legally inferior. while i believe hate crime laws are still constitutional, this is what james madison warned about when he said we should not rely just on the bill of rights to protect our freedoms.
Updated. With very graphic details about what actually happened to David that night. Oh, my God.
Nothing short of death penalty can rid the Earth of this type of scum.
Even if there is a small chance that they could be reformed (unlikely), who cares? Who needs them?
Let them be reborn and reformed in the next life.
They should be used to set an example to society what will happen to you if you do something this sick and crazy.
God help his family, knowing that such evil was done to their child.
This is horrific. What was the fate of the 2 people who attacked this poor boy?
This is such a heart breaking story that I am at the point where I feel emotionally numb, the whole thing is so surreal and just hoping that when I wake up from this never ending nightmare that the past 7 months was just that, a nightmare. I only came across that Journal because I was trying to find more information about Gus and his sister. There are so many unanswered question about those two and I just wanted to figure out why they waited until the next day. As you can tell the DA used another name for David, so it would be hard to come across this piece just by doing a simple internet search using David’s real name.
ANNA, I too wish I never came across this piece. I debated long and hard about writing the whole gory detail, but the simple truth is, we as a people can no longer live with blinders on thinking we all live in harmony. As David said, “hate is alive, strong, and thriving in the cities, towns, and cul-de-sacs of Suburbia” and we cannot live under the illusion that all neo-Nazis are living in some rural part of the country. They are living right next door to us, in fact they can even be our neighbor.
After reading the update, do any people here (Salil?) think that the desire some of us may have to see those two demons punished (not reformed) in prison for the rest of their lives is out of order? I for one am glad that these evil men got caught and sentenced so justly despite apparently trying hard to cover up the evidence and get away with it. I was curious to see if I could find a pic of these perpetrators on the internet…the guy Tuck is pretty skinny, I don’t think prison is going to be fun for him. And I’m happy about that. I wonder if they know that their victim committed suicide? My guess is they wouldn’t care, after all they tried to kill him.
I still stand by what I originally said.
Amitabh, maybe it is easy for me to say as someone who hasn’t had a loved one in this kind of scenario, and hopefully that will never be put to the test, but I maintain: This kind of notion of primal revenge is not a healthy basis for a society.
Manju, I see what you’re getting at, but again, legislation is based on principle as well as history. I think I understand what you are saying – let’s say someone’s belief system is comprised of ideas that personal property is nonsense. He goes out and murders someone with the intent of robbing them of their possessions; he will not necessarily gain a harsher sentence because of his belief system. Whereas someone whose belief system is based on hate and bigotry towards a certain group who kills someone belonging to that group may get harsher penalties b/c of his belief system. Correct me if I’m wrong.
But a major reasoning behind hate crimes laws is that the government is taking an affirmative stance against racial and other forms of bigotry. Considering that this country was founded and bloomed based on systems of racial violence and dominance, considering the multiple acts of Congress which were blatantly racist and bigoted, considering the history of lynching and other forms of racial violence undertaken by individual citizens in this country…is it really that dangerous to set a legal precedent years later which criminalizes such modes of thinking if they motivate acts of violence? The slippery slope which is constantly brought up shoulda woulda coulda happened by now, but are all sorts of belief systems truly and substantively being criminalized in this country? (And let’s be sincere – for every hyper-PC example of banning red ink in classrooms you may bring up, I can trot out 10 virulently racist right-wing radio hosts 🙂
You are right – to an extent, a bigoted and racist belief system is legally inferior, but only when it is affixed to an act of violence in order for it to warrant the harsher penalties, and as Camille brought up above, even THEN it faces intense scrutiny. Manju, you keep parceling off the bigoted belief system unto its own island, but it doesn’t play out like that.
Look, if bigoted and racist beliefs and speech were being criminalized in this country, I would say you have a strong point. But like I brought up earlier, there are several radio hosts in this country who are outright racist on the air – and I’m not talking about anti-immigrant policy stances or real opinions. I mean, radio hosts who straight up say, “Yeah, I don’t really like Mexicans, and if I’m a racist, so be it – I’m a racist! They smell, etc. etc.” The FCC really isn’t coming down hard on them. Ann Coulter hasn’t been litigated into oblivion.
Yeah, you can bring up other examples in US history where the government was involved in other forms of oppression, but like it or not, this is a country where issues of race and racism (and sexism, homophobia, etc. to a lesser extent) are at the forefront. Whether it’s more of a media creation rather than a real national discussion is up for debate, but the primacy of the race issue is going to affect legislation in one way or another.
Above I brought out the fact that any race (or gender) can be a victim of a hate crime, and that some get publicized and some don’t. I did bring up stats, but as an alert SMneer noted, they happened to link to a tainted page. But I think if we are going to fulminate over something, we have a duty to educate ourselves about it and that may lead down dark but sometimes informative allies.
I make a point of visiting different race/ethnic oriented web sites, whose viewpoints might be inimical to mine, partly through morbid curiosity, partly because of a sense of duty, getting a perspective from black, white, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, wiccan, atheist, homo, hetero-only, brown, yellow, red, tan (did I miss any?), and in each case the scenario as the commenters see it is entirely different, like blind men examining the elephant. POC, of course, have certain povs in common as compared to white. But ugly stories of crimes committed against persons of their “Kind” turn up on every web site, expressing concern similar to the desi concern about this case (the perps did tell him he looked like an Indian,after all), and on every site, lamentations about “this is what it is like for our people” (the whites too; they aren’t the majority everywhere; never were in some places). A story of a crime committed against one of our number haunts us, provided we identify, as the case of David. Crimes against another color or type with whom we do not identify, do not move us, indeed, we will probably never hear of them. Evidently the media does know what it is doing after all. The dead may rest in peace, but the living never do and crimes go on and on. One thing about hate crimes that is special, no matter what type of people they victimize, they leave behind intensely unpeaceful, unreconciled vibes. We do live in a country where the justice system can be made to take action against such evils. “Liberty and justice for all” is written into the constitution–the very body, the very system of the nation. The evils of lower human nature conspire against such high flown intentions and concepts, yet we keep on trying and I for one, believe progress has been and is being made. But you can never rest.
I am in tears. This is so disgusting. I cannot believe that there are still people out there who would do this kind of thing. Thank you for covering it. Denise
Although the content of the story was horrifying, the fact that something like this has occured does not shock me. I would not be surprised if these kids get out on bail in two years for “good behaviour,” while at the same time an African American male who was involved in an unarmed robbery would get 10 years without parole despite no priors and good behaviour. From Navroze Modi in NJ (who was beaten to death while Dot Busters chanted “Hindu” “Hindu”) to Reena Virk (who before murdered had a cig put out in between her eyes to symbolize the bindi by white girls and a white boy who later on blamed gangster rap music for his behaviour) to systemic racism in KKKanada and Amerikkka, to symbolic racism via western media, to me seeing the words “DIE PACKIES” and Swastikas spray painted in 2007 in a city where over 20% of the population is South Asian, to my friend who was beaten up and Turban ripped off for “white” amusement, to a white police officer telling my sister to use her brown skin hand to wipe the shit off of her ass because there is no difference between brown skin and shit, to the over 100,000 Chinese and Indian immigrants who the Canadian gov’t already happily collecetd $800 non-refundable fee and are still awaiting entrance into this country while waiting back home for a response etcetera. etcetera and so fourth… Racism knows no bounds… And as to how can this happen? It has, always has and will continue to happen… though it will appear that this has not been happening and that incidents like this are extremely rare… thanks to good ol’ discourse of denial and also to the possible somnambulistic life some of us live coupled with pollyannaism that some of us subscribe to….
David Ritcheson was very courageous to testify and share his story… Rest in peace brave soul and God encircle you with love…
Per A N N A’s earlier comment, they are both eligible for parole only after 30 years.
brown person, the town you describe seems horrific. Where do you live?
Sounds like a nightmare version of Vancouver.
forcryingoutloud brown person. You sound like a cry from hell–I hope things get better for you. I can’t assess much though, out of context. There was a rather depressing study that came out recently which stated that trust in societies goes down as the number of disparate races and ethnicities living in close proximity goes up. Even trust among members of your own “group.” It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but diversity is no gift for anybody. It is a necessity and we have no choice because the world is getting smaller. It is something that MUST be LEARNED.
I’ve just come off of two days of visiting a variety of web sites, all with people like brown person reeling off a similar list of gruesome grievances–every example he cites has an analogy in another color or gender. Except they would be called “white person”, “black person” “feminist person”, “angry male person”, etc. So my point is proven. You see, brown person, it’s like this: your enemies don’t see it as you do, because they have their own experiences. That’s why ranting at a particular group for their perfidious treatment of your group, is a dead end. The ones who listen and feel guilty are not the ones who are involved or ever likely to be involved. And the ones who don’t care what you say have their own experiences to worry about.
I comment on all kinds of other web sites, sometimes identifying as desi, sometimes not, and I make much the same case as I do here, speaking as one who has been victimized by crimes of both sexism and racism. I also know white friends, and black friends who have been insulted, assaulted, etc., for reasons of race. They too could rant, but they have better things to do. Racism, sexism, etc., are stubborn realities of life, and a psycho is born every minute. We have laws because there will always be crimes. I think I’ll go and say a prayer for David, and a rainbow coalition of several dozen other hate-crime victims on various web sites, that I have come to know over the past few days.
Initforthemoney…It is predominantly people of colour (in the past, present and future) that experience racism at all levels though, individual, systemic, institutional and global. And when class, sex, religion, sexual orientation also play a role to the race of a person of colour, then the “isms” become interlocking systems of oppression for people of colour. From racist, Eurocentric school curriculums in America and in Canada, white hegemonic cultural mediums, the underrepresentation of people of colour in the professional labour market sectors in Canada, the overrepresentation of aboriginals and black people in Canadian as well as American prison systems, the colour of poverty not just locally but also globally etcetera… to generalize people of colour are still more disadvantaged in comparison to their “White” counterparts. I recall a piece of slam poetry I heard once, it went something like “Surrender with prayers always fails, God only loves the rich, the white people and the males…” When one thinks about this, historically and in present context, these three social locations (upper-class, white, male) have been the three most priveleged, most powerful, most dominant and most oppressive groups, and when combined they become almost invincibile. Race, class, sex, sexual orientation etcetera is expereinced differenetly when experienced by people of colour than by white people…and in many cases its more harsher for people of colour. Just read the countless studies of the disenfranchisement of black youths in America and Canada and then read articles by Peggy McIntosh and listen to an Avril Lavigne song…who has it worse? Its not just individual hate crimes that people of colour are subjected to, but rather a whole fiasco of elements which target their race, their culture, their religion etcetera, from an individual, systemic, etcetera, etcetera level…
good points
“but nobody here accepted those stereotypes. you are the only one who offered a justification for accepting stereotypes, albeit only for whites. “
Complete misrepresentation, I’d expect nothing less. The issue isn’t acceptance or non-acceptance. What I’m saying, is GIVEN their existence (I’m not offering justification for stereotypes, because those “against whites” I won’t fully agree they are stereotypes – at least in the same sense they are against minorities, but for arguments sake, lets say they are.), we seem (in a general sense) to be more accepting of those against minorities, yet step all over each other to make sure we don’t turn hate crime threads into “anti white riots”
I think you might be discounting the power dynamic of xenophobia. There is a lot of black on foreigners hating going on in the US these days
I’m sure there is. but i’d argue they do it to earn points with the white powerstructure. you play ball, you get a piece of the pie. The same way the blacks and south asians are at odds in the Caribbean, to earn favor with the super structure there.
And… sorry for continuing it on this thread, but I did feel those misrepresentations of what I was saying deserved clarification