January 5, 2017

Should we talk about the incident or how the press covered it?

"Vicious Hate Crime in Chicago Whitewashed by Press."

ADDED: I looked to see how the NYT handled the story. On a front page sidebar right now, there's:



Race is clearly stated. What's not mentioned is that the "white teenager" is mentally disabled. And the word "beaten" doesn't describe the attack accurately at all.

On the "U.S." page within the NYT there's:



That's a big reference to race, but with no specificity about which races are involved and who's attacking whom. Again, the verb is "beat" (not "torture").

The newest article — which went up in the last hour — is not linked from the front page or the U.S. page. I found it by searching the archive: "The Latest: Police: Race Not Motive Behind Video Attack." This is an AP article, with no photograph or video.
Chicago police say they don't believe a man beaten in an assault broadcast live on Facebook was targeted because he was white. 
But the attackers are saying "Fuck white people" as they torture the white man! How did the police arrive at this strange belief?
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Thursday morning that charges are expected soon against four black suspects. Guglielmi says the suspects made "terrible racist statements" during the attack, but that investigators believe the victim was targeted because he has special needs, not because of his race.
I didn't watch the video. I don't intend to. Do the attackers make statements about the young man's disability? Does the fact that attackers choose a weak victim mean that no other factors were involved? Would they have selected a mentally disabled black victim if they'd found one first?
Guglielmi says it's possible the suspects were trying to extort something from the victim's family. Video from Chicago media outlets appears to show someone off-camera using profanities about "white people" and President-elect Donald Trump. Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said Wednesday that the victim has mental health challenges, and he called the video "sickening."

Guglielmi said police are working with prosecutors "to build the strongest case."
I guess one way to build "the strongest case" is to forget about the hate crime element. It's just one more thing the government has to prove. But why then ever prosecute hate crimes? If you already have a physical attack, why make proving the case more difficult? Answering that question, the government must avoid viewpoint discrimination. It must not be that you go the extra distance and charge a hate crime when the hate goes in the way that you want to highlight for public consumption and you forget about it when it doesn't serve your agenda.

AND: As you consider whether the attack was motivated by racism against white people, consider whether the press coverage exemplifies racism against black people. Ironically and unwittingly, the journalists' speech betrays a negative stereotype about black people — that their words are not to be taken as seriously as the words of white people. That is an old and shameful stereotype.

MORE: The hate crime question focuses on whether the victim was selected because of his race, and the police seem to think that the man's disability is what made him a target. We can understand how cowardly people looking for a victim might choose someone weak. That's also a reason for choosing a female or an old or a small victim. It seems easier. But victims have multiple characteristics. If you were looking for an easy victim, you might select a small, old, disabled female. Now, add race. If you were an evil coward looking for the easiest victim, would you take race into account? Remember the Wisconsin State Fairground attacks in August 2011:
Police in West Allis, Wis., say some attacks by black teenagers on white people outside the gates of the Wisconsin State Fair on Aug. 4 were racially motivated and should be prosecuted as hate crimes.

One African-American teenager arrested Wednesday confirmed witness statements suggesting that the large group of black teens, who had originally fought among themselves, specifically targeted white people as they spilled out of the large fairgrounds on the outskirts of Milwaukee at closing time. According to the West Allis Police, he said he personally picked out white people because they were "easy targets."

214 comments:

1 – 200 of 214   Newer›   Newest»
Gahrie said...

Both are outrageous.

The press covering it up is more dangerous to our republic.

Patrick Henry was right! said...

I think we should discuss this as another example of white privilege.

Just think how badly that poor special needs youth would have been beaten had he not been white.

David said...

I think you have already answered your own question.

My questions: Is this a race hate crime? A progressive hate crime? Hate crime against the disabled? Or just a bunch of ignorant thugs?

I always go with the simplest and most likely explanation first, which is ignorant thugs. The Fuck Trump stuff is probably window dressing. Or publicity seeking.

Rae said...

The erosion of trust in the media and justice system is well deserved.

Owen said...

Gabriel: what you said.

These thugs committed a hate crime. Full stop. We should be grateful that they gave us a Law School 101 casebook study in how to confess their intent to the world unambiguously and irrevocably. Facebook may pull the file but there is no way to un-ring that bell. The damage is done, which makes the efforts of the police to pretend they have not established motive, and the efforts of the media to pretend there is nothing to see here, all the more derisory.

Our "leadership" has repeatedly demanded a "national conversation" on racism. OK, let's have it. Media, are you ready?

Media?

Crickets.

Drago said...

This "left narrative protection" racket has been going on so long within the media/Democrat complex that one is tempted to just shrug ones shoulders and shuffle on with life.

However we crossed over key thresholds in the last decade now where the fake narrative by the Left is being used to fully weaponize the government and its policy against Republicans/conservatives/etc.

Therefore we are forced to engage at a much more aggressive level if we wish to retain even a modicum of freedoms we all assumed were safe just a decade ago.

So, yeah, let's talk about how this was covered.

Alot.

Anonymous said...

Talking about how the press covers the incident is part of talking about the incident.

You can't understand such incidents without talking about how the press covers such incidents.

David said...

It would be front page news if it were white kids torturing a disabled black person. I am not sure that tells us anything new or useful though.

Chris N said...

Progress!

Owen said...

Gahrie- stupid spellcheck turned your name into "Gabriel." Apologies.

Lyle Smith said...

Progressive hate rhetoric, especially fostered by Obama, is behind this. Shame on progressives and him. Supremacists are out of control in Chicago.

Laslo Spatula said...

Black Violence gets Whitewashed.

I guess Chinese Violence would be Yellow Journalism.

I am Laslo.

chickelit said...

I'd like to read some reporting on the mechanism of how the story gets buried or papered over. Given that it explodes throughout the Internet, exactly who is tell reporters and editors not to cover this?

Curious George said...

"David said...
I think you have already answered your own question.

My questions: Is this a race hate crime? A progressive hate crime? Hate crime against the disabled? Or just a bunch of ignorant thugs?

I always go with the simplest and most likely explanation first, which is ignorant thugs. The Fuck Trump stuff is probably window dressing. Or publicity seeking."

So you think ignoring the actual and inserting your opinion is the "simplist and most likely?"

You wonder how the press reports as it does? Same kind of dishonest morons like David.

chickelit said...

Whoever is whitewashing the story doesn't understand the modern currency of facts.

William said...

Bonus hate points because they recorded the incident and broadcast it to their friends. You have to be pretty far gone to want to torture a disabled person, but apparently they're not outliers.

whitney said...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/5/southern-poverty-law-center-omits-trump-related-ha/

Add it to the list

Laslo Spatula said...

Urban Black Youth to America / Palestinians to Israel: like or unlike?

I am Laslo.

Susan said...

How it was covered? Was it?

I find it interesting that it HAS been covered but only because the video was so widely known via other means that the usual media channels had no choice but to at least acknowledge its existence. People see the video elsewhere, see the perfunctory coverage, and make their own conclusions

The more the media tightens their grip, the more facts slip through their fingers. And viewers. Probably.

AllenS said...

The media likes to cover stories like this with a pillow... until it doesn't move anymore.

Anonymous said...

David: My questions: Is this a race hate crime? A progressive hate crime? Hate crime against the disabled? Or just a bunch of ignorant thugs?

I always go with the simplest and most likely explanation first, which is ignorant thugs.


Ignorant thugs aren't motivated by racism? Does being racist require a minimum level of education and social polish or something?

That's funny, I have it on the best authority that it's the "ignorant" people who are the racists, the xenophobes, the islamophobes, the "haters".

Then again, now that I think about, the Best Authorities only say that when the ignorant thugs in question are white.

mockturtle said...

It was obviously a 'hate crime' but assault is a crime and should be prosecuted as such. The notion that a crime is worse because it is motivated by hatred based on race, etc. is idiotic. That said, those thugs need to be locked up for a very, very long time.

chickelit said...

Two personal experiences with the "fuck Trump" epithet: (1) After attending a Trump rally in San Diego last year, some youths pulled along a group of us pedestrians to verbally hurl it from open car windows (thankfully, nothing else); (2) while voting in the last election at a neighborhood polling place inside a garage, a nextdoor neighbor put up a handmade "Fuck Trump" sign to irritate/dissuade voters.

chickelit said...

Is the MSM press beholdered to DoJ rules?

cornroaster said...

chickelit said...
Is the MSM press beholdered to DoJ rules?

If so, we no longer have a free press.

richlb said...

If Obama had a retarded son, he would look like.....

Wince said...

The anti-Trump drumbeat in the media has cultivated a belief that no action -- if done in opposition to Trump -- is illegitimate.

In other words, being anti-Trump has the power to redeem any action. These kids tapped into that even if their actions were not intended to further that anti-Trump agenda.

The press blackout is necessary to erase the clear connection that, had the actors and words been reversed, would have been used to reinforce and justify that anti-Trump message.

It is beyond their comprehension that violence and hate can be motivated or sought to be justified by non-stop rhetorical excesses in opposition to Trump.





Owen said...

Mockturtle: "The notion that a crime is worse because it is motivated by hatred based on race, etc. is idiotic."

As a matter of logic and policy, I agree. As a matter of tactics, I am willing to pay these PC idiots back in their own coin. They invented this concept to signal their concern, and expected it to be used on the categories they despise. But it fits here, however inconveniently for their vision and values, and should be applied. Good and hard.

As a friend said, "People only change when they're in pain."

sparrow said...

"The notion that a crime is worse because it is motivated by hatred based on race, etc. is idiotic"

I disagree here. If a crime is pointedly racial it has the potential to further divide the populace and set off other crimes/riots etc. It's an ambiguous category, applied unevenly for political gain, but it's not entirely false that racially motivated crimes may have wider consequences than ordinary assaults.

Basil Duke said...

Drago, you are absolutely correct. Conservatives' ridiculous embrace of polite, Bush-ian passivity in the face of psychotic Maoist slander has to be strangled and dumped in a swamp. The American left isn't simply playing old fashioned political hardball; they want us dead, quartered and our limbs nailed to posts as a warning to others. These four Chicago orcs are but a wee sampling of the ground troops organized by Barry O., Holder and the rest of the ranking swine. (I saw hundreds of them in Ferguson and Clayton, Missouri two and a half years ago, and they are even more charming in battalion-size numbers.)Curious that the deluge of 'hate' crimes directed against blacks, Muslims, women, etc. by mean white boys prove to be abject fakes the vast majority of the time. And yet we never hear about the "proven fake" part of the story; just the original, horrific accounts of white boys gone savage. Curiously, the media go all Helen Keller on us when an actual "hate crime" (committed by blacks against whitey) is streamed LIVE on Facebook!!!! Nary to see here, plebes; move along. Love trumps hate, stop mansplaining, Black Lives Matter, etc.

ndspinelli said...

The best thing that could come out of this would be to end the travesty of hate crime prosecution. Ironic Dylan Roof is facing a hate crime death penalty, the first, if he gets death.

traditionalguy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
traditionalguy said...

BLM has always been Soros recruited terrorist group. But they must find mentally challenged kids so they can out think their victims. Which is why they normally try to perform for CNN news teams.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

I didn't watch the video. I don't intend to.

I am down with that. I see no need to further darken my life with something like that.

In one of the press reports I saw it was stated that the victim was a classmate of one of the kidnappers/assailants. And that they contacted the victim's family while they were torturing him.

So, they kidnapped him for ransom, cause they are idiots who think they are master criminals. As for the racial epithets, well idiot criminals are often casually racist. They probably do have animosity for whites. Why wouldn't they? The refrain from school/media/society is that white racism is the cause of all their problems. I would probably get pretty pissed too.

Owen said...

Traditionalguy: "Which is why they normally try to perform for CNN news teams."

Oh, man. That is so cold.

Amadeus 48 said...

Today's print edition of the Chicago Tribune carries a story that refers to the victim expressly as a white man but refers to the attackers as "two men and two women"--no mention of race of the attackers. It does say that the attackers ranted against Trump and "white people", and that the police are investigating whether in was a "hate crime."

There are so many possibilities here. The attackers may have been:
--humanities professors;
--social science professors;
--members of the staff of the Dept. of Education Civil Rights Division;
--Asians;
--Latinos and Latinas;
--people who hate the mentally disabled;
--radical Muslims; or
--disappointed Clinton supporters.
Can anyone else think of any possible perpetrators?

I eagerly await the results of the authorities' investigations. I am sure that the Tribune will be all over it.





Birkel said...

There should be no such thing as a "hate crime" as the very term is Leftist propaganda.

This appears to be a crime. If so, it was heinous. I leave open the possibility it was a hoax, however.

Anonymous said...

David: It would be front page news if it were white kids torturing a disabled black person. I am not sure that tells us anything new or useful though.

The observation is not new, but it's useful to repeat it because there are still a lot of people out there who don't see how absurdly out-of-sync with reality the media race/crime "narrative" is.

Curious George said...

"mockturtle said...
It was obviously a 'hate crime' but assault is a crime and should be prosecuted as such. The notion that a crime is worse because it is motivated by hatred based on race, etc. is idiotic. That said, those thugs need to be locked up for a very, very long time."

It's more than assault. It's kidnapping. Or at least false imprisonment. Or both.

YoungHegelian said...

But the attackers are saying "Fuck white people" as they torture the white man! How did the police arrive at this strange belief?

Remember, this is Rahm Emanuel's Chicago. This is the place were a bunch of lefty thugs violently shut down a Trump rally. The Chicago PD's reaction: nuthin... They just let it happen.

Fernandinande said...

Chicago police say they don't believe a man beaten in an assault broadcast live on Facebook was targeted because he was white.

The police are willing to lie even when their lying is 100% obvious. They're worse than the MSM.

rhhardin said...

The four blacks are doing the right thing. The press has told them so for years.

What they admire is screwed up, but the press did that.

rhhardin said...

It's hardly a hate crime. It's a goal crime.

rhhardin said...

Possibly they're graduates of Chicago public schools.

Matt said...

Chicago, eh? Obomba and Rahm-a built that.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Can anyone else think of any possible perpetrators?

Lutherans?

And the thought occurs to me that if one of the assailants is a classmate of the victim, who is mentally challenged, then perhaps the assailant is as well?

Big Mike said...

Back in 2002 a gang of ten black high school students roamed the edges of the University of Virginia randomly attacking white and Asian college students while shouting racial epithets. This was seemingly an open and shut hate crime but was poorly publicized and not prosecuted as a hate crime. We had been considering colleges for our second son, and scratched UVa off the list when we found out about it, despite the school's academic reputation and the advantage of in-state tuition.

My point is that this sort of thing -- refusing to publicize or prosecute racially motivated attacks by blacks against whites, Asians (and now and again Hispanics) as the hate crimes they are -- for decades. So what's different? I think it's a mix of the following:

(1) In 2016 the press abused its role as gatekeeper for what's news and how we should think about it. They've been doing so for a while but they went too far. This led to the rise of alternate sources (Drudge, Glenn Reynolds, Daily Caller, Ann Althouse) which are more trusted and s lessening of respect to where people trust the media about as much as they trust politicians, which is to say hardly at all.

(2) White middle class and working class people passed their fed up point.

It's going to be interesting.

Fernandinande said...

William said...
Bonus hate points because they recorded the incident and broadcast it to their friends. You have to be pretty far gone to want to torture a disabled person, but apparently they're not outliers.


They're just like their peers...speaking of which, in large groups they become "teens".

Michael K said...

"it's not entirely false that racially motivated crimes may have wider consequences than ordinary assaults."

It's a dangerous territory we are entering here and it will get worse as Trump is inaugurated.

Chicago police are intimidated by the black power movement, which is what this is revived from the 60s. The chief has been replaced and the whole department has been racially polarized for years. For years white officers were pushed to the bottom of the promotion ladder and my brother-in-law was one.

Now, the department is completely controlled by the Mayor and the black political system. Obama's true sentiments were on view years ago when the elections in Chicago strangled a brief reform movement. Obama declined to support a guy who was trying to succeed a corrupt major politician who had had a stroke and was disabled. Instead of supporting the reformer, Obama supported the corrupt son of the ill politician.

There is no possibility of fair treatment of ordinary whites by the city. The street light has been out in front of my sister's house for months. There are assaults and cop cars responding but no street light maintenance, Largely white neighborhood.

Life in Chicago. Meanwhile the population drops.

chickelit said...

Amadeus 48 notes...There are so many possibilities here. The attackers may have been:
--humanities professors;


40 years ago, one of the unspecified couples involved could have been Dohrn/Ayers. Dig, they put a fork in him. Wild!

Ron Winkleheimer said...

It's more than assault. It's kidnapping. Or at least false imprisonment. Or both.

Assault is when someone threatens physical violence against you, making you fearful for your safety. Battery is when they actually strike you. Thus the usual charge of "Assault and Battery."

Once again, going by news reports, the perps stole a van and used it to transport the victim from his neighborhood to were the torture took place.

So, did they force him into the van, or did they entice him? They could have pretended to be his friends to lure him, we don't know. In any case, once you refuse to let someone leave when they wish to, my understanding is, that is kidnapping. But I am not a lawyer. Perhaps the Professor could clarify.

bagoh20 said...

Pretty straight forward kidnapping and torture on the part of the defendants here, so the only really big story of national import is how the press handles it, and that is predictably biased. Something predictable is not usually very newsy, but the enormous bias it identifies in the press is important stuff.

Additionally on the quality of our press, have you noticed how all the news is now dictated by tweets. The TV newsfaces are now relegated to simply reading tweets, and they get paid millions for that. What a country!

Owen said...

Fernandinande: "The police are willing to lie even when their lying is 100% obvious. They're worse than the MSM."

Humbly beg to differ. Cops are doing what they're told. This is exactly analogous to their new See-No-Evil policy on the Holocaust of gun-toting gangstas over the past several years. They are responding to very clear signals from the top of the food chain. If cops shoot black people, crucifixion will follow. Facts don't matter. Why risk your badge and your pension by doing more than the absolute minimum? Therefore we get no response, or very slow response. Cops are not there to prevent crime or interrupt it, they show up to help the coroner bag the body, and give a statement to the insurance claims adjuster.

Seriously: would any of us do differently?

The fish rots from the head.

TreeJoe said...

I'm torn about the press handling here. It IS obvious they are working to supprress a particular narrative which would naturally emerge. I think that is a deliberate effort to avoid getting into an argument with people who like to say minorities can't be racist.

At the same time, I would RESPECT a good press corps who chose to suppress a story like this to prevent copycat crimes. This victim was kidnapped, held down, threatened, beaten, tortured, while the perpetrators were live streaming on facebook their beliefs. That's a form of attention some people would seek to create for themselves, and it's reasonable for a good press to avoid encouraging such behavior.

That's not why the press is suppressing the story, hence why I'm torn.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

where the torture took place.

Dammit.

M. Helmet said...

Assault is when someone threatens physical violence against you, making you fearful for your safety. Battery is when they actually strike you. Thus the usual charge of "Assault and Battery."

@Ron Winkleheimer: you sure about that counselor?

Ron Winkleheimer said...

This victim was kidnapped, held down, threatened, beaten, tortured, while the perpetrators were live streaming on facebook their beliefs. That's a form of attention some people would seek to create for themselves, and it's reasonable for a good press to avoid encouraging such behavior.

Didn't the Joker have to hi-jack a television signal to do this? Now you just go on facebook live.

I Callahan said...

The police are willing to lie even when their lying is 100% obvious. They're worse than the MSM.

No, they're not. In any way.

Do you personally know any cops, Ferdinande? Because the guy who said it isn't a cop, per se; he's a politician. The rank and file know damn well what happened and why it happened. But their hands are tied by those same politicians.

Now please don't bore me with a treatise about how cops should go rogue and "follow the constitution" to their own detriment. These guys have families to take care of, and no amount of sanctimony is going to change that. As long as liberals and commies run these cities, it's never going to change.

Anonymous said...

ndspinelli: The best thing that could come out of this would be to end the travesty of hate crime prosecution.

"Hate crime" prosecution (selectively applied) isn't going anywhere as long as progs control the justice system.

Ironic Dylan Roof is facing a hate crime death penalty, the first, if he gets death.

Speaking of whom - I don't watch television, so my perception may be skewed, but based on print outlets the media coverage of the Roof trial seems to be much more restrained than I would've expected. Is this mass-murderer just too obviously a member of the class of socially isolated, sad-sack total losers to be of any use at all as an icon of the "white male power" and "white privilege" alleged to be permeating our society?

Can any television watchers comment?

Ron Winkleheimer said...

@M. Helmet

I'm no lawyer, but I am sure about that. If I am incorrect, I would be pleased to be corrected. I like having correct information more than being right.

At Common Law, an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact.
An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in either criminal or civil liability. Generally, the common law definition is the same in criminal and Tort Law. There is, however, an additional Criminal Law category of assault consisting of an attempted but unsuccessful Battery.
Statutory definitions of assault in the various jurisdictions throughout the United States are not substantially different from the common-law definition.


http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Assault

Note, this is the legal definition. Not the one found in a dictionary, where battery is cited as a synonym of assault.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Is this mass-murderer just too obviously a member of the class of socially isolated, sad-sack total losers to be of any use at all as an icon of the "white male power" and "white privilege" alleged to be permeating our society?

Yep

Owen said...

Ron Winkleheimer: "...Now you just go on Facebook..."

Yup. Marshall McLuhan spoke of the "global village" and in important ways he was prescient. We can easily see our virtual neighbors engaged in the most repellent acts. But we cannot easily fashion an appropriate sanction, or remonstrate with them. There is no coherent or stable ethos in the "community," only a tsunami of Twitterstorming.

Jupiter said...

"Should we talk about the incident or how the press covered it."

The incident is a problem if you live around black people. Most of us don't, for obvious reasons. We all have to live with the white-hating press.

Time to update Rockwell's "The Problem We All Live With".

Curious George said...

Ron Winkleheimer said...
It's more than assault. It's kidnapping. Or at least false imprisonment. Or both.

Assault is when someone threatens physical violence against you, making you fearful for your safety. Battery is when they actually strike you. Thus the usual charge of "Assault and Battery."

Once again, going by news reports, the perps stole a van and used it to transport the victim from his neighborhood to were the torture took place.

So, did they force him into the van, or did they entice him? They could have pretended to be his friends to lure him, we don't know. In any case, once you refuse to let someone leave when they wish to, my understanding is, that is kidnapping. But I am not a lawyer. Perhaps the Professor could clarify."

In Illinois it's moot: "by deceit or enticement induces another to go from one place to another with intent secretly to confine that other person against his or her will." The issue is less how and more why.


HoodlumDoodlum said...

Yeah, that Media treatment, kinda "ugly," don't you think?

But anyway all this does is prove those smart celebrities right--they said since Trump's elections "we've seen an increase in racial violence" and gosh darn it here's proof!

Owen said...

Anglelyne: "Is this mass-murderer just too obviously a member of the class of socially isolated, sad-sack total losers to be of any use at all as an icon of the "white male power" and "white privilege" alleged to be permeating our society?"

Exactly!

rehajm said...

...we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you...

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Did the perpetrators think they could not be found because they used pseudonyms on facebook?

Hey, the BTK serial killer was caught because he didn't think there was any way to track him down using a MS Word file. And why wouldn't he? The police assured him that was the case.

http://www.howtogeek.com/trivia/which-serial-killer-was-caught-via-the-metadata-in-a-microsoft-word-document/

walter said...

I can't wait for the "Art not War" crew's video response.
It's ok though. The great uniter will be in Chicago for his farewell speech next Tuesday.

BarrySanders20 said...

Come on people. Blacks cannot be racist. The race hustlers told me so.

Ann Althouse said...

"My questions: Is this a race hate crime? A progressive hate crime? Hate crime against the disabled? Or just a bunch of ignorant thugs?"

Anyone who jumps to the "just a bunch of ignorant thugs" is underscoring the point I made in the second update.

Jupiter said...

sparrow said...

"If a crime is pointedly racial it has the potential to further divide the populace and set off other crimes/riots etc. It's an ambiguous category, applied unevenly for political gain, but it's not entirely false that racially motivated crimes may have wider consequences than ordinary assaults."

What you are saying, is that the State has a valid interest in suppressing certain points of view. Which is quite possibly true. However, the point of the First Amendment is that the State is not to act upon that interest.

Drago said...

Something tells me that if this was done to a jihadi captured on the battlefield by US forces in Iraq the Left/Dem MSM would have no issue describing the action as "torture" and playing it on a loop.

But then again, those guys are just terrorists intent on killing Americans and everyone who doesn't accept Sharia law. This kid was a white kid, so you know, probably had it coming in "Trumps America".

Ron Winkleheimer said...

I would imagine that torturing him on Facebook live would introduce some sort of aggravating circumstances? Especially if the press reports are correct and they did so while the kid's parents were watching in an attempt to extort money.

So even if it wasn't a "hate crime" - defined as a crime motivated by hate, as opposed to a crime committed by racists that is primarily motivated by the desire for pecuniary gain, but where the victim is selected at least partially because of their race, they would still be facing extended sentences because they are depraved and evil?

Rick said...

Birkel said...
I leave open the possibility it was a hoax, however.


I wondered that also at first. Posting the video is so unfathomably stupid you have to suspect it was in furtherance of a hidden goal. But with them arrested and the police making statements I think a hoax would have been discovered, so it's likely they're just unfathomably stupid.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Owen said...Humbly beg to differ. Cops are doing what they're told. This is exactly analogous to their new See-No-Evil policy on the Holocaust of gun-toting gangstas over the past several years. They are responding to very clear signals from the top of the food chain. If cops shoot black people, crucifixion will follow. Facts don't matter. Why risk your badge and your pension by doing more than the absolute minimum? Therefore we get no response, or very slow response. Cops are not there to prevent crime or interrupt it, they show up to help the coroner bag the body, and give a statement to the insurance claims adjuster.

WGN TV: Chicago Police Stops Down Sharply, Homicides Up (March 2016)

Unexpectedly!

Kurt Bermuda said...

Althouse said:

"How did the police arrive at this strange belief?"

That's easy. CPD diversity policy bans badthink. If you think that way, you're fired. Even if it's reasonable and required under the circumstances to think that way! See how leftism has poisoned critical operational policy within institutions? Bottom line, anti-badthink policy was designed and deliberately implemented to cripple people's ability to deal with hard life choices! Cops aren't allowed to police anymore.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said...Anyone who jumps to the "just a bunch of ignorant thugs" is underscoring the point I made in the second update.

Obviously, ma'am; "thug" itself is a clearly racist word and anyone using it is engaging in racist speech. One need not analyze further.

NPR: The Racially Charged Meaning Behind the Word Thug

[It actually has an interesting race-related etymology, of course: Wiki: Thugee]

Jupiter said...

"I didn't watch the video. I don't intend to. Do the attackers make statements about the young man's disability? Does the fact that attackers choose a weak victim mean that no other factors were involved? Would they have selected a mentally disabled black victim if they'd found one first?"

Althouse, what the Chicago police understand, and retired law professors don't, is that there are people -- lots of them -- who don't need any reason other than opportunity to abuse and harm their fellow citizens in horrendous fashions. Inquiry into their mental states is like asking what polio had in mind when it attacked Franklin Roosevelt. Maybe it thought he was Jewish?

J. Farmer said...

Torturing for the pure sake of sadism doesn't usually involve phrases like "fuck Donald Trump" and "fuck white people." What the media is totally clueless about is the huge wellspring of anti-white hatred and contempt that permeates much of the black community. There's a reason the victim was mentally disabled. Any white person with half a brain cell who wasn't under SJW delusions about race know that a primary strategy for avoiding being the victim of a crime is to stay as far from heavily black neighborhoods as possible.

walter said...

I've never really felt comfortable with the "hate crime" distinction. Now we'll have folks debating the motivation/intent of the statements and/or targeting that accompanied the kidnapping/torture. I'm not sure I'd feel better about being intentionally harmed or killed for no particular reason.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

And Jupiter wins the thread.

grackle said...

I didn't watch the video. I don't intend to.

Me neither. Years ago I once briefly watched the beginning of a video of a poor fellow getting his head sawed off his neck with what looked like a butchers knife. I did not linger long. I immediately regretted that I ever succumbed to that morbid curiosity. As a member of society all I need to know is what happened – I do not need to view the details.

I’m with the previous commentor who doesn’t like “hate crime” laws. I understand that “hate crimes” could upset some folks to the point of retaliation or riot. But what it is created by such laws is a two-tiered system of justice which I believe eventually causes even larger social disruptions – like the inevitable cheating on the system when the law violates some political correctness and the resulting loss of respect for laws in general that such cheating causes. Watching the Media and the local authorities do a dick-dance around this crime would be comical if it were not so sad.

Kyzer SoSay said...

@ Angelyne 9:21

You nailed it. And reading up a bit, I see that good ole Ronnie Dubs confirmed it as well at 9:24AM.

Dylann Roof was a complete loser, few real friends, mostly part of the clique of unpopular kids who hang out with each other because nobody else will, but who would ditch their companions in a heartbeat if they were invited into a popular clique. I saw it happen many times in high school.

I was one of those kids in middle school, being new to the district and somewhat poorer than most of my classmates. Took about a year as class clown to make some true friends, but I never completely lost touch with some of my former-fellow-outcasts Hard to do when one lives only a block down the street, and though I understood social dynamics, I also didn't like how cliquey the world seemed so we still hung out regularly - though always outside of school.

Roof apparently lost his chance at affection from a girl to a black person, and it drove him over the edge. He'd already been into certain White Supremacy cults and websites, and he was of lower than normal intelligence and also on psychiatric and recreational drugs (beyond just marijuana). In other words, a prime target for self-radicalization, which is not solely a Middle Eastern phenomenon. But he was not a leader, was never going to start a movement, and took no orders from higher up that we know of. Just a loser, unlucky in life and love, who decided to lash out in horrific fashion.

Curious George said...

"grackle said...
I didn't watch the video. I don't intend to.

Me neither. Years ago I once briefly watched the beginning of a video of a poor fellow getting his head sawed off his neck with what looked like a butchers knife."

Yeah, it was nothing like that. Mostly it was of the perps spewing their racist hatred.

Drago said...

HoodlumDoodlum: "WGN TV: Chicago Police Stops Down Sharply, Homicides Up (March 2016)

Unexpectedly!"

I'm tempted to craft a Taranto-ish "Fox Butterfield Call Your Office" blurb!

grackle said...

And Jupiter wins the thread.

Yep.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

J. Farmer said...Torturing for the pure sake of sadism doesn't usually involve phrases like "fuck Donald Trump" and "fuck white people.

Eh, it might. I have no problem believing some bad people targeted a victim and in the course of harming the victim threw in some racist/hate crime-y statements but were not primarily or only motivated by hate crime-y reasons.

That's not the Media's standard, though. Look at the Matthew Shepard case. A book came out a few years ago, "The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths about the Murder of Matthew Shepard" that laid out a case that Shepard's murder didn't have anything to do with his homosexuality--it was basically a drug thing. Shepard was apparently a meth dealer and user/addict and knew (and had probably had sexual encounters with) one of the guys who killed him (that guy was also involved in meth dealing). The murder was probably part of an idea to rob Shepard (steal his drugs). None of that mattered. Shepard was gay and the Media narrative from the start was that this was an anti-gay hate crime. Wyoming was painted as dangerously homophobic, there were books, national memorials, plays, films, foundations...etc. President Obama signed an anti-hate crime federal law with Shepard's name.

So, that's the standard. If a crime is committed and a hate crime angle can be applied in any way, we're supposed to apply it. Whether the actual and/or primary MOTIVATION of the crime was "hate" (against a group on the approved list) shouldn't matter--if hate is involved we're supposed to label it a hate crime.

The story, then is that the Media isn't doing that here. The story is that the Media almost never does that when then hate in question does not follow the Media narrative. Since the Media is strongly Left...the narrative is Leftist. So, as usual, the Media is garbage, and it's worth pointing out yet again. The Professor highlights the fact that their bias in this and similar instances (coddling/treating minorities to a lesser/lower standard) is racist itself, but again this just another example of a pretty well-established fact.

Oh, in case I forgot: fuck the Media.

eric said...

I have a weird angle to cover on this, since pretty much everything has already been said.

Just as the press will look at a case like this and try and find the nuance (whereas if it were white kids torturing a disabled black kid, it'd be straight up, clear, racism). But in this case, the press gets into the weeds to help us all understand. It's not racism, it's something else. Trust us!

Well, just as the media will take this angle on these cases, it'll do the exact same thing with the economy.

When a Democrat is president, the economy is great no matter the facts. We have to look at the nuance. We start with the premise, Obamacare is great and it's workings, now we make the facts fit the narrative.

Under a Republican administration it's the exact opposite. Bad economic news is straight up terrible news. No nuance need apply.

Be ready for this.

mockturtle said...

Ironic Dylan Roof is facing a hate crime death penalty, the first, if he gets death.

If Dylan Roof is executed [and let us hope he is], it should be because he killed a bunch of people with malice aforethought, not because he was motivated by racial hatred.

Fernandinande said...

HoodlumDoodlum said...
NPR: The Racially Charged Meaning Behind the Word Thug


MCWHORTER: When somebody talks about thugs ruining a place, it is almost impossible today that they are referring to somebody with blond hair.

Gee, I wonder why. "Teens" sounds nicer, like some energetic young scamps pulling funny pranks.

[It actually has an interesting race-related etymology, of course: Wiki: Thugee]

Better to be the thugee than the thugger?

Mike Sylwester said...

In theory, extra punishment for "hate crimes" is valid.

In practice, however, the extra punishment never is imposed on racial minorities during Democratic administrations.

J. Farmer said...

@HoodlumDoodlum:

I agree with your distinction. I am not a particular fan of "hate crime" distinctions in criminal law in the first place. The media have a very specific definition: hate crimes are things that straight white non-Jewish males do.

Dude1394 said...

There is no way a young white male is an easier target than a small old female or someone smaller. It is hubris to suggest it. As you mentioned he was white and he was simple, nice combo.

Oso Negro said...

"If I was an evil coward would I take race into account...?"

Yes, I would. In my lifetime, whites and other "non-black" races have been conditioned to either feel sorrier for black people than they deserve, or to feel more afraid of black people than they deserve. So if I was an evil BLACK coward, I would assume that I could get away with a lot more transgressions against other races than I might against my own. This is a way in which young blacks have been harmed by "racial progress" in the past century. Back in the day, darky town would have burned over an incident like this. The white privilege bullshit that academics are hyped up about is nowhere near the sort of thing to fear that a bunch of pissed off white guys roaming East St. Louis shooting, burning, and hanging negroes was. It is a mistake to think that is no longer possible. But you know, enough real or perceived transgressions and that whole mob thing gets going again.

Kyzer SoSay said...

This crime is sickening. I really hope all four perps, and any more they can dig up, do hard time in a hard way. Their parents should be ashamed. The folks in charge of Facebook should also see to it that none of the four EVER get to participate in that social medium ever again - that might be more of a punishment than even the scorn from their parents (any guesses as to how many of the 4 were raised by single mothers?).

William said...

i just hope that this young man doesn't go on to develop a distrust or hostility to black people. Then he would be guilty of racism.

James Pawlak said...

The proper responses, by some passing and patriotic citizen,to such an attacks include: Two to the head and one to the chest; A "double tap" to the head; And, four inches with the point, twist, repeat---Or, any other, effective and immediate, techniques as will provide clear lessons in proper human behavior and dispose of such dangerous animals.

I do wonder if the Trump Administration will send in a team to investigate this hate crime.

Kyzer SoSay said...

My wifey just got her IL FOID card in the mail, so in this communist state, she has the privilege of owning a firearm. I'd been bugging her to do it for about a week, and she relented (I've had mine for a longer time). Her "big" birthday present from me is going to be a stylish conceal-carry purse (they actually make them to look really nice - as even my wife's anti-gun teacher friends admit), and in that purse will be a compact semiautomatic pistol chambered in 9mm or .38 cal. For a woman, my wife is pretty strong having been born and raised in the country, but she's no match for a determined male opponent of similar size, and similar size would be a small man indeed. By the time she receives this gift she will be fully versed on pistol use (and rifle use - our first official "range date" is this Saturday), and my fervent hope is that if she ever has to use it in self defense, she drills rounds directly through the forehead of whoever is foolish enough to take her on.

It's times like this that I consider dressing fancy, wearing one of my few truly expensive and flashy watches and a nice suit/shoes, and walking through a random South Side neighborhood, waiting for a thug to accost me and attempt to mug me, so that I might remove a scumbag from the earth. White, black, Hispanic - doesn't matter one bit. To me, all muggers look the same - just a target silhouette at the range. I would never do it, simply because the risk is too high - both personally and legally. But if I ever met someone willing to go Full Charles Bronson (TM) in Garfield Park or a similar 'hood, I'd supply them with ammo for life. I might just have to break out my well-worn copy of "Without Remorse" (all my Clancy books are well-worn at this point) and live vicariously through John Kelly for a few chapters. I've never frequented the South Side of Chicago myself (except by mistake at a house party), but the seedy streets of Baltimore in the '70s is an acceptable mental substitute.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

The first sentence of the AP story on JS Online assures us this has noting to do with race:

Chicago police don’t believe a man beaten in an assault broadcast live on Facebook was targeted because he was white despite profanities made by the accused assailants about white people and President-elect Donald Trump

The Chicago Police Superintendent added:

It makes you wonder what would make individuals treat somebody like that

Well, you could listen to what the perps were actually saying while committing these crimes. But I kid. Of course there must have been other reasons.

Sebastian said...

"But why then ever prosecute hate crimes?" 1. To get whitey 2. To score political points 3. To reinforce the narrative of white supremacy in racist America. Hate crime prosecution here would not help politically and complicate a case possibly tried before a mostly-black jury (as AA implied), therefore the h-c frame would be less useful. But the facts may be egregious enough that prosecutors will go this route.

Scott M said...

But victims have multiple characteristics.

That moment when intersectionality becomes problematic.

William said...

Would it be a mitigating or aggravating factor if they tortured a handicapped member of their own race? Racism in a way makes the crime more comprehensible.......The victim is mentally challenged. How do you describe his tormentors who took the trouble to record and broadcast their criminal acts?

Kyzer SoSay said...

As for the racial tinge to the word "thug" - yeah, when I hear that I picture some black youth gangbanging POS, whereas, when I hear the word "punk", I generally picture a white guy with a mohawk and a skateboard flipping off passersby and stealing cans of beer from a 7-11.

But in my own usage, "thug" refers to anyone who violently breaks the law and injures/kills people with little sense of shame or remorse. Dylan Roof, if he had a few assaults or robberies on his record before his killing spree, would be a "thug" in my mind. Since he apparently did not, and his mass-murder was his first real violent crime, it makes him a psycho, akin to Timothy McVeigh (although once a psycho's body count rises to 25 or so, I start calling them a "terrorist" - though that Venn diagram overlaps quite a bit with both "psycho" and "thug").

Owen said...

Mockturtle: "If Dylann Roof is executed...". Agree. Murder is murder. The "hate" multiplier does no good. We have sufficient dynamic range in the signal we want to send, that we need not add 11. Doing so introduces a false (or at least a redundant, therefore wasteful) criterion, and forces us to scrutinize this mysterious new quality of "hatefulness." Which --key-- focuses not on the actor but on the victim. And sudddenly we go down the rabbit hole into Victimology and whose sadness is most sad.

Criminal law is less about helping the individual victim and much more about vindicating society's interest in law and order. We care first about deterrence and incapacitation, next about rehabilitation and reparation.

IMHO we don't need "hate crime" to complete the armanetarium of criminal law.

Kyzer SoSay said...

@ Bushman - 10:30AM

It is sickening to watch the media tie themselves in knots to disavow the racial aspect of this crime. And the political aspect of the crime.

Imagine these four black youth were Trump supporters (or not), and their target was a fellow black who supported Hillary. Imagine they said things like "Fuck Hillary!" This crime would be laid, by the media, at Donald Trump's doorstep.

Sickening. If I were anywhere near as amoral as these thugs, I'd be getting my nicest suit pressed and drycleaned today in anticipation of things to come.

I hope the police someday just pull out and cordon off a few 'hoods in Shitcago. After all the ammo in those blocks has been expended, send in the street sweepers and move on as if nothing happened. The bodies of the dead can be buried in one of Obama's failed housing projects.

sdharms said...

how come no one is demanding their Mafia Mayor Rham answer for this? Baltimore mayor was on the hot seat with their problems. Does Rham has some kind of FOB immunity?

Gusty Winds said...

"...but that investigators believe the victim was targeted because he has special needs, not because of his race.

Is one worse than the other?

Etienne said...

When you add "race" to a crime, then it gets harder in the courtroom to get a conviction.

With those kind of charges, the jury pool, which will be mostly the lower class citizens, are not going to want to convict on a race based crime.

If you make it a simple crime, like assault, kidnapping, and extortion, then people are more apt to convict.

Not enough white people get selected for jury's to satisfy the prosecution. They all have elections to worry about, and you don't want to poop in your cornflakes.

Scott M said...

The more the media tightens their grip, the more facts slip through their fingers. And viewers.

And systems...

MayBee said...

Remember the stupid celeb video from yesterday where they talked about the rising number of crimes being done in the name of Trump?
Will they make another video decrying this horrible crime?

Scott M said...

Me neither. Years ago I once briefly watched the beginning of a video of a poor fellow getting his head sawed off his neck with what looked like a butchers knife. I did not linger long. I immediately regretted that I ever succumbed to that morbid curiosity. As a member of society all I need to know is what happened – I do not need to view the details.

Funny! I don't know if it was the same video (around 2003), but I did the exact same thing for the same reason.

Birkel said...

Media Press Guide:
Disfavored person says something, the oddest construction of which can be twisted into something marginally offensive = dog whistle.

Favored person says something directly, in which the plain meaning is obvious and offensive to everybody = uncertain motives.

MayBee said...

Interestingly, this was broadcast on Facebook Live, but the story about it isn't trending on Facebook. Even though if you search for the story, more people are talking about it than the things I see trending.

n.n said...

Class diversity. One step forward, two steps back. Progress.

eric said...

I struggle with whether or not to have my children watch this. I want them to know and understand that there is evil in the world and it's real. Not some Harry Potter evil. Real evil. And people will want to hurt them and kill them because of their color, or beliefs, or political views.

MayBee said...

I also think all the people who are so happy to talk badly about white people just because they are white need to re-think. It isn't a healthy way to categorize other people, fellow citizens. But it's gotten so mainstream.

n.n said...

What characteristics other than [class] diversity do the attackers exhibit?

Have they been corrupted by a "spoiled-child" syndrome? From non-contributory entitlements? From wealthy, aloof parents?

Do they suffer from a narcissism endorsed by an institution, a culture, a [quasi-]religion, a predatory press?

Has their dignity been suppressed through opiates (e.g. redistributive change)?

Fabi said...

Thanks Obama -- this racial healing is good stuff!

Fernandinande said...

sdharms said...
how come no one is demanding their Mafia Mayor Rham answer for this?


"Chicago murder rate is record setting - 4,331 shooting victims with 762 murders in 2016. If Mayor can't do it he must ask for Federal help!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2017"

Here's another Chicago story:
"A store clerk in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood wrestled a gun away from two robbery suspects Tuesday, then shot them both....Both suspects were taken to the hospital in critical condition. ...
There were no reports of injuries to the clerk."

David said...

Curious George said . . .

So you [David] think ignoring the actual and inserting your opinion ["ignorant thugs] is the "simplist and most likely?"

You wonder how the press reports as it does? Same kind of dishonest morons like David.


George, you need to read more carefully and think harder. I did not say that simple thuggery was the correct explanation, only the simplest and most likely. All perpetrators of a crime like this are ignorant thugs. Then there are (inevitably smaller) subsets of thugs who may be motivated by race, animus to the disabled or political feeling. "Fucking Trump" aside, thugs who think beyond the simple joy of showing power over the weak are a smaller number. Therefore less likely.

I have no idea what their motivation is, and neither do you. Would their crime be any worse if you could discern the motivation with reasonable accuracy?



Michael said...

In a legal sense, there should be no such thing as "hate crime." Crime is crime. Motive is important in proving guilt, but irrelevant to the crime. Assault, vandalism, etc., are already crimes and carry sufficient penalties. Introducing the concept of hate crime just brings the circus.

walter said...

Police commander Duffin(!) essentially said the kids err..young adults "acted stupidly".
I just don't know. In the era of "dog whistles" and "safe spaces", the interpretation is strange.
Again, next Tuesday this will be handled in the farewell speech.

Unknown said...

So the left is proposing a hate crimes bill / sexual orientation protection bill here in Utah. Mainly, it's an attempt to criminalize the Mormon Church's stand on gay marriage and make it illegal to disagree with a gay person, ever-- in short, to make it like Oregon and Washington, where the state hunts Christians to punish. I hope it doesn't pass.

But the left commentators are all shrieking about how hate crimes applies to all areas, and would protect the hypothetical Mormon who was beaten for being a Mormon by an angry gay mob. I think that happened after Prop 8, actually, in California.

As this story shows, it's illusionary. Democrat party groups like blacks or gays never fear hate crimes laws, because they are immune. Hate crimes laws only applies to groups Democrats don't like.

--Vance

Curious George said...

David said...
Curious George said . . .

So you [David] think ignoring the actual and inserting your opinion ["ignorant thugs] is the "simplist and most likely?"

You wonder how the press reports as it does? Same kind of dishonest morons like David.

George, you need to read more carefully and think harder. I did not say that simple thuggery was the correct explanation, only the simplest and most likely. "

Uh, you need to read harder. I never said you what was "the correct explanation" just what was "most likely." It's exactly quoted by you.

"All perpetrators of a crime like this are ignorant thugs. Then there are (inevitably smaller) subsets of thugs who may be motivated by race, animus to the disabled or political feeling. "Fucking Trump" aside, thugs who think beyond the simple joy of showing power over the weak are a smaller number. Therefore less likely."

Again, your opinion. Keeping puking up this pablum.

"I have no idea what their motivation is, and neither do you. Would their crime be any worse if you could discern the motivation with reasonable accuracy?"

You having "no idea" is the first intelligent thing in this post. But you have made your moronic case of "most likely"...once again based on your personal moronic opinion and not the facts at hand. It's the same idiocy that says "we may never know the motive" when some muzzie yells "Allahu akbar" before commiting a mass murder.

The rest is a strawman.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

From https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/civil-rights/hate-crimes
For the purposes of collecting statistics, the FBI has defined a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”

Political belief is not in the above list. The "Fuck Trump" is irrelevant wrt Hate Crime.

If a dwarf runs amok with a ball bat, kneecapping everyone over five foot height and shouting "Fuck Tall People," is that a Hate Crime?

Althouse has appended an instance of assaults by "black teens" on "white people" who were picked "because they were 'easy targets.'" This seems not to meet the test of (see FBI definition above) "bias against a race." Is this not bias *in favor* of a race.

Suppose a garage door is found with "Nigger Lover" painted, and a motorcycle torched in the driveway. Is this a Hate Crime?

Suppose the perpetrator is found to the the property owner. Can this be a Hate Crime? If the house or motorcycle were mortgaged, does the mortgagor have cause of action for a Hate Crime?

Suppose a garage door is found with "Fuck White Poeple" painted. The perpetrator is found to be the property owner, red haired person of palor. Could this be a Hate Crime?

Suppose in the above, the red haired person of palor self-identifies as "African-American." Could this be a Hate Crime?

Fernandinande said...

"At least $100 million has been spent just on the initial treatment of non-fatal shooting victims in Chicago this year." [July 2016, for < 2,000 victims] ...
"The average cost of treating a gunshot victim is over $50,000 [$52,000], according to the Cook County Board, which manages the city’s largest public hospital, where many of the victims are treated."

$225,212,000 for 4,331 shooting victims. Obamacare must be working overtime..."According to the Cook County Board, 70 percent of shooting victims are uninsured.". Oops.

Martin said...

You gotta understand that the DoJ's report on Chicago policing, started in the uproar over the Laquan MacDonald shooting video released in late 2014, is due this month. So of course the powers-that-be in Chicago will lie, dissemble, obfuscate, do anything they can to deny what it obviously is--a black-on-white hate crime.

I do not like the idea of "hate crimes." That is a thought crime which I was always told was un-American, something Hitler or Stalin did, but not us. Intent can be a factor at sentencing.

And one reason I don't like it is what you see here--hate crime laws are clubs to be used or not used at the discretion of people who are motivated by politics, not justice.

These people need to be charged with kidnapping, assault and battery, anything else that covers torture and degradation, and so on. Motive will be an exacerbating factor at sentencing. And get rid of those pernicious hate crime laws.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Ummmm. Shoulda been Mortgagee, aka Note Holder. Been away from it too long.

California Snow said...

I watched the whole video last night (about 29 min). The majority of it is the girl pointing the phone at herself talking about herself and the others around them (from what I could tell).

I'm amazed at the lack of education of these youth. They can barely put together a coherent English sentence. Half the time I couldn't understand what they were saying...I could hear the words but they made no sense.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Race is clearly stated. What's not mentioned is that the "white teenager" is mentally disabled. And the word "beaten" doesn't describe the attack accurately at all.



I don't want to watch it either. What happened?

If we just take everybody who did this and shoot them through the head, will society be deprived of valuable human resources? Or will it be addition by subtraction?

Etienne said...

California Snow said...Half the time I couldn't understand what they were saying

You are not fluent in ebonics. It's worse than Mexican, but very popular in the ghetto's. You also have to use your hands, and lick your lips a lot.

It's a jungle out there. oops, can you say "jungle" anymore?

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

@ Chicklit: at a neighborhood polling place inside a garage, a nextdoor neighbor put up a handmade "Fuck Trump" sign.

I'm thinking here in Texas it is a 150 foot zone around polling places for no political soliciting. Every polling place I recall is well within publicly owned property, but suppose a private yard is within that 150 ft zone...

Roughcoat said...

I saw this happen now and again at the mixed-race high school I attended in the 1960s: black kids ganging up on and savagely beating on what we then called "retarded" white kids. Actually, groups of black kids beating up on white kids was a regular occurrence both on an off the school grounds. The school was located in a black community, we called it "the ghetto," and going to and from school was a daily adventure, I kid you not. If you were a white kid you were always in danger of getting jumped, especially in the winter, when it was dark out. Most white people have no idea what this was like. Also, every day I drive into and through some of the worse black neighborhoods in Chicago, on the South Side, e.g. Englewood, where shootings and killings are daily occurrences. I'll never ever live in an integrated neighborhood. I saw up close in high school what this entails and I see it up close now. I now live in a very pleasant, leafy southwest suburb of Chicago populated in large measure by Irish-Catholics who long ago fled Chicago neighborhoods like Englewood (an Irish neighborhood back in the day) because they wouldn't put up with the bullshit. The worst crime we have here is the occasional break-ins of parked cars and garage robbery. I like it. I'm all for equal rights and fairness and everything, but I don't want to live among a lot of black people. It's just too dangerous.

MaxedOutMama said...

Well - if the same video were released with the races of victim/attackers reversed shouting "F*ck blacks", it would without question be considered a hate crime. To determine charges on the basis of the race of the victim/perpetrators is unconstitutional in a very blatant way.

That aside, the attack itself is so shocking it is hard to care about the hate crime question!! It is even more shocking that they put it on the internet.

I do think the hate crime statutes are constitutionally iffy at best, and become more so in practical application. A persistent failure of justice in practice is one of the primary issues with the death penalty, and has certainly been an issue in DP litigation and rulings, so this obvious failure has to raise genuine legal questions.

Roughcoat said...

I always go with the simplest and most likely explanation first, which is ignorant thugs. The Fuck Trump stuff is probably window dressing. Or publicity seeking.

Give me a break. You have no idea. Hello, it's a racist hate crime against whites. That's the simplest explanation. And the one that comports with my life experiences of growing up on the front lines of the racial divide.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Thanks, Obama!

Skippy Tisdale said...

No mention of race here, which in itself is telling.

N.J. soldier allegedly targeted, brutally beaten after Mummers parade

http://www.nj.com/camden/index.ssf/2017/01/nj_soldier_allegedly_targeted_brutally_beaten_afte.html

Roughcoat said...

Black communities in Chicago have always been rotten with violence and criminality, that's just a fact. Even the so-called upscale majority black communities suffer from levels of violence and crime that do not obtain in white neighborhoods and communities. The hatred among blacks for whites and the anti-white violence that such hatred engenders is a fact of life in the Chicago, always has been. If you're a white guy walking down a sidewalk anywhere in Chicago and you see a bunch of black "youths" coming your way, you know that you have to cross the street immediately or risk dire consequences. And the risk of dire consequences is high, I assure you. These are survival skills 101 in Chicagoland. You won't hear anyone say this in our "national discussion on race." But I'm saying it here. You're welcome.

pdug said...

Ann:

WAPO article "Pro-Trump narratives converge in one awful attack streamed on Facebook"

contains this gem

"Gingrich might be right about different reactions, but he conveniently ignores the reason. If the attackers had been white and the victim had been black, the incident would have, of course, conjured America's ugly history of white mobs committing violence against black people."

Conjured is at least as questionable diction as garnered.

RoBanJo said...

I was stationed in Key West, FL. I remember a news story from the late 80's where a young (presumably) black man was resisting arrest and called the officer arresting him a 'cracker'. As cracker is a derogatory racial the local authorities planned to add Hate Crime to the charge. Some genius was reported as saying that wasn't how Hate Crime was intended meaning from a "person of color" towards a white officer. So let me get this straight, my a person is more injured because the attacker doing the assault was motivated by hate? So a beating isn't hate until the race or sexual orientation or ... was the cause?

jacksonjay said...

Racist Axiom - Blacks can't be racist, no power.

POTUS Corollary - Black POTUS can't be scandalous, no power.

DOJ Corollary - Black AG can't be scandalous, no power.

jacksonjay said...

Black Priviledge!

Quaestor said...

I will be happy if those Chicagoland thugs are not charged with a hate crime. The concept of hate crime is totalitarian by its very nature. What is hate but a category of thought? How can a free society exist in freedom if the thoughts of the citizen are proscribed?

The concept of motive is fundamental criminal law. If I crash into you in my pickup truck after I have a guzzled a half bottle of bourbon I have committed a crime, perhaps a crime of negligence, but if I crash into you in my pickup truck because Allah demands the death of infidels and idolaters I have committed murder with malice aforethought. However, the left has blurred and distorted the concept of motive far beyond what is consistent with freedom of thought and conscience. As a free citizen and a free society, I have the right hate anyone or anything. Whether I act upon that hate is immaterial. I may not commit assault against you. I may not seize your person and hold you captive. I may not steal your property or vandalize it. I may not slander you or libel you. I may not defraud you or blackmail you. Whether I do these things to you because I hate you or because I love you shouldn’t enter into the question; the graveyards are as full of people who went to the gallows because of love as well as hate. To put it in general terms what the criminal law seeks to proscribe is deliberate harm. There are also many categories of harm that are not deliberate, that are accidental or negligent. These categories hard are the realm of civil law. What has happened lately is the blurring and distortion of the concept of harm. According to the left, if I disagree with you, I have harmed you. If I say something to you that you find disagreeable, I have harmed you. If I do not hold what you hold to be true and good, I have harmed you. This is the most pernicious legacy of the 60s, and it must be purged the law, from the academy, from private enterprise, from all walks of American life if we are to retain our republic.

(reposted with typos fixed)

Matt Sablan said...

If the victim was picked due to disability -- why isn't THAT a hate crime?

Michael K said...

"a primary strategy for avoiding being the victim of a crime is to stay as far from heavily black neighborhoods as possible."

A stupid white couple who were newspaper reporters ignored this rule and got beaten up by a black crowd.

Nothing happened because the newspaper they worked for was black owned.

There’s outrage in Norfolk, Va., today after a white couple was attacked by dozens of black teenagers, and the local newspaper did not report on the incident for two weeks, despite the victims being reporters for the paper.

Even today, the Virginian-Pilot did not cover the crime as news, but rather as an opinion piece by columnist Michelle Washington.

“Wave after wave of young men surged forward to take turns punching and kicking their victim,” Washington wrote, describing the onslaught that began when Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami stopped at a traffic light while driving home from a show on a Saturday night. A crowd of at least 100 black young people was on the sidewalk at the time.


No mention in the paper they worked for.

The columnist admits the story has not, until today, appeared in the Virginian-Pilot.

“The responding officer coded the incident as a simple assault, despite their assertions that at least 30 people had participated in the attack,” Washington explains. “A reporter making routine checks of police reports would see ‘simple assault’ and, if the names were unfamiliar, would be unlikely to write about it. In this case, editors hesitated to assign a story about their own employees. Would it seem like the paper treated its employees differently from other crime victims?”

Washington says the day after the beatings, Forster searched Twitter for mention of the attack, and one post in particular chilled him.

“I feel for the white man who got beat up at the light,” wrote one person.

“I don’t,” wrote another, indicating laughter. “(do it for trayvon martin)”





FullMoon said...

These four are not ashamed of ganging up on one person. They are proud enough to share it with their friends. See, it is the law of the jungle. These type of blacks are the lions. Whites are the gazelle. It has always been this way. Any white kid from the city can confirm it. Some of the black kids would be praised by their parents for beating a white person. It is a fact. The Trump thing is just icing on the cake, something they have learned from the media. If there was no Trump element, they would still have beat this kid.However, having been given permission by the media and many celebrities to hate Trump, and all white people by association, it makes this behavior more acceptable.

Of course, all black people are not this way, and of course, bad people of other races will behave badly also.

eric said...

I just saw breaking news that they'll all be charged with hate crimes.

Quaestor said...

A peculiar thing about these alleged kidnappers and torturers (let us all be circumspect and reticent about their guilt) is the fact victim either escaped with his life or was released. If anything is clear from recent history it is the disgusting fact that the criminal element in the Chicago area (overwhelmingly black, btw) area it’s typically violent and murderous

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

This is why Americans are disgusted with the hack democrats who control the press.

sparrow said...

Does the fact that this teenager was disabled add to the seriousness of the crime under the law? I certainly think it does, in the moral context, but does criminal law capture this contingency?

Quaestor said...

These type of blacks are the lions.

During the twilight of the British Empire in Africa, there were gangs of blacks called simbas (Mau Mau), though I think they are more like jackals.

Bruce Hayden said...

Yes, at the common law, and in tort, assault is essentially threatening to hit someone, and battery is actually doing it. But, we don't live with that anymore to a great extent with our criminal law. Instead, it is almost all statutory law now, and "assault" and "battery" have most often essentially been combined into various criminal types and levels of assault. Thus, swinging at someone, and then hitting them, are typically both "assault", though the latter may be more severe. But, if you were to sue someone, then you would sue the guy swinging at you for "assault", and then, if he actually connected, for "battery".

Roughcoat said...

Quaestor:

Not sure what you meant here. The Chicago area is not overwhelmingly black. The city itself is roughly 1/3 black, 1/3 Hispanic, 1/3 white. The "area" overall, referred to since time immemorial by those of us who live here as "Chicagoland," and which comprises the suburbs, is majority white. Most of the Northwest Side of Chicago proper is white, with very safe, pleasant neighborhoods.

Or maybe you were referring to the "criminal element," which is indeed overwhelmingly black. I think the most recent statistic is that some 80-85 percent of violent crimes in Chicago (the city not the area) are committed by blacks, and that 10 percent are committed by Hispanics. We whites commit a paltry 5 percent of violent crimes -- obviously we have a lot of catching up to do.

If I'm wrong about those statistics, please correct me.

Freeman Hunt said...

This reminds me of another sort of crime where, no matter what the perpetrators say, officials are often saying that the motives remain unclear.

Strange that if you are a member of an identity group especially loved by the media, the media pretends that your words have no meaning. They're happy to steal your voice and call it good.

walter said...

Yeah..this assault/robbery has been reported (minimally) without any reference to race for some time.
Teen Who Robbed Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Son Sentenced
Poor Rahm..couldn't manage "sanctuary" for his own kid.

Roughcoat said...

During the twilight of the British Empire in Africa, there were gangs of blacks called simbas (Mau Mau), though I think they are more like jackals.

No. The Simba Rebellion took place in Congo-Leopoldville in 1964. The Mau Mau movement took place in Kenya and was almost exclusively Kikuyu in its ethnic composition.

Michael K said...

"Most of the Northwest Side of Chicago proper is white, with very safe, pleasant neighborhoods. "

By Chicago standards. My niece lives in North Whipple and had her car broken into and a lot of valuable musical equipment stolen.

In south Orange County it would be headlines.

I think Tucson is even safer as the houses where ours is are on big lots, 1 acre or more, and most whites (except for U of A leftist faculty) are armed. Plus lots of cactus to slow the runner.

Freeman Hunt said...

A Woman on a Date with the Media

Waiter: "And what would you like for dinner?"
Woman: "I'll have the seared scallops."
Man: "She hates seafood. She'll have a steak, medium-rare."
Woman: "No, no, I want scallops. I said what I wanted."
Man: "No, that's not what she means. She only said scallops because she wanted a kind of meat that is seared on the outside and not cooked for very long. She really intends to order steak."
Woman: "No, I do not! I love scallops! I want to eat scallops!"
Man: "She only says that, but it isn't what she means. Ignore her."

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Quaestor @ 12:20

This.

Michael K said...

No. The Simba Rebellion took place in Congo-Leopoldville in 1964. The Mau Mau movement took place in Kenya and was almost exclusively Kikuyu in its ethnic composition.

Yes. Two good novels about those incidents by WEB Griffin and Robert Ruark. Ruark's novel is called "Something of Value" and is excellent, though dated.

Griffin's is also excellent and is called "The New Breed, and is part of his "Brotherhood of War series written in the 80s.

Interestingly, his account of US Green Berets in the Congo is substantiated by James Stewart's "Heart of a Soldier" which is non-fiction and a biography of Rick Rescorla.

Roughcoat said...

Michael K;

Re By Chicago standards, yes, good point -- which is one reason I live in the suburbs, where the incident you describe (North Whipple) would also generate headlines, if we had a newspaper to print headlines (we don't).

Fyi, most of the people in my virtually crime-free 'burb are also armed.

Rick Resconda did not, I think, fight in the Congo. I believe he fought with the Selous Scouts, in Rhodesia. Am I right about that?

Birches said...

I was just going to say what Freeman already did. It's so paternalistic, to not take perps at their word.

Michael K said...

"I believe he fought with the Selous Scouts, in Rhodesia. Am I right about that?"

Yes, but his buddy, Dan Hill, seen here with Rescorla in a good New Yorker profile, was a green beret in the Congo. Thy became friends there and it was Hill who joined Rescorla in his survey of the WTC security after the 1993 bombing. Rescorla and Hill were sure there would be another attempt and tried to convince Rescorla's employer to move to New Jersey.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Is anyone taking bets on how long until we'll see a "Republicans Overreach" or "Unfortunate Backlash" headline related to this incident? I'm pretty sure we've already seen the idea that "we can't let this incident shape our views in any way" argument expressed.

You know, the REAL shame would be if this unfortunate occurrence made things tougher for minorities, or women, or some other favored group--we really have to be careful about that sort of thing. There are a lot of anti-minority, anti-woman, anti-favored group wackos out there and telling this story in the wrong way might put good people at risk.

It's not narrative building, nor ridiculous Leftist bias--the Media's really just looking out for the vulnerable. Not the disabled guy who was beaten/tortured, of course, but the real vlunerable--the ones that actually matter.

How did Donald Trump manage to win, again? Inexplicable.

Fernandinande said...

walter said...
Teen Who Robbed Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Son Sentenced


Dealing cocaine + auto theft + strong-arm robbery = boot camp.

pdug said...
WAPO article "Pro-Trump narratives converge in one awful attack streamed on Facebook"
contains this gem


That whole article is a gem - I enjoyed the way the author replaced "accurate" with "provocative", and the the ending was a real hoot:

whites, overall, now view discrimination against white people as more prevalent than discrimination against black people.

“This perception is fascinating, as it stands in stark contrast to data on almost any outcome that has been assessed,” the researchers, Samuel Sommers and Michael Norton, wrote on the Post Everything blog in July. “From life expectancy to school discipline to mortgage rejection to police use of force, outcomes for white Americans tend to be — in the aggregate — better than outcomes for black Americans, often substantially so.”


Unfortunately for the social scientists[sic] Samuel Sommers and Michael Norton, group differences in life expectancy, school discipline, mortgage rejection and police use of force are not the result of racism.

walter said...

Yes Fernandinande, they really brought the hammer down. Especially since he still hasn't revealed who his accomplice was.
It was interesting how hush-hush Rahm was about the incident..he of "never let a crisis go to waste".

mockturtle said...

Not having to do with race per se but my favorite Onion satire on social/educational 'experts'.

Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give a Shit?

Quaestor said...

@ roughcoat

I meant the criminal element in Chicago is overwhelmingly black. My post was garbled because I made the mistake of using the dictate app.

Chicago crime stats

mockturtle said...

Chicago has been a crime-ridden city for many decades--nearly a century, in fact. Consider their mayors. It's not only about race but about rampant corruption.

Roughcoat said...

Quaestor:

Righto, makes sense. no worries.

Gretchen said...

Gee Obama's not running out saying if he had 2 sons they'd look like the perps, along with his two daughters?

Not that I think he should, it is just that his idiotic Travon Martin comment was disgusting. The problem is that once racism started to diminish, back when people were taught to look past race, and look at the person for their accomplishments, character and humanity, the race pimps made us inject race into everything. So now instead of an evil crime perpetrated by young adults against a helpless mentally challenged man, we have people lining up black and white.

The perps are terrible people, regardless of color, they've been taught to hate whites. It's racist.

walter said...

Don't worry, Chicago. Obama's coming!

Scott M said...

If a dwarf runs amok with a ball bat, kneecapping everyone over five foot height and shouting "Fuck Tall People," is that a Hate Crime?

No, it's a height crime.

robother said...

Predators gonna prey, and they're gonna prey on the weakest first. "F--- Trump, F--- White people!" is just marking their territory, like putting the whole thing up on Facebook.

Pretending such as these have the free will, agency that we expect of other adults in our society is a fiction even the Progressives are dispensing with. As the Chicago Police Chief said: "what MADE them do it?" (That's a question no law enforcement type would ever ask about Dylan Roof.)

I agree that "hate crime" is indistinguishable from Orwell's "thoughtcrime." But the reason it is never applied to these types is more related to why we never apply the term "hate' to a big cat, even when it plays with its prey before a kill.

Rick said...

The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office said it had filed felony criminal charges against three 18-year-olds — Jordan Hill, Tesfaye Cooper and Brittany Covington — as well as Tanishia Covington, 24.

If Obama had a son he'd look like Tesfaye.

StephenFearby said...

The current version of the Times article:


4 Questioned After Video Shows Racially Charged Beating in Chicago
By MITCH SMITH and NIRAJ CHOKSHI JAN. 4, 2017

...ends with:

"...In a Twitter post this week, Mr. Trump cited Chicago’s 762 murders last year and suggested that the city should seek federal help if local efforts to control the violence continued to be ineffective. Superintendent Johnson declined to speculate on whether the president-elect’s Twitter message and the videotaped beating were connected."

The Times article doesn't identify the person [likely a lefty reporter] who asked this stupid question...the import of which was to try to connect the kidnapping and torture to Trump's tweet.

Just posing the unanswered question invites readers of the Times to connect the dots in the most politically correct way.

Another example of "Times Spin".


Bilwick said...

Nothing to see here, people. Show's over. Keep it moving.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Just saw a news conference in regards to this case. The police say the victim was dropped of at a Burger King by his parents in order to meet with one of the assailants, who was his friend.

So, serious lack of vetting of "friends" by the parents.

The "friend" used a stolen van to transport him around for three days. The motive for the assault appears to be that they got into a play fight that got out of hand and the women got annoyed, so they tied him up. And the rest followed. Downstairs neighbor then called police because of all the noise.

The police did not mention an attempt to extort money, but why hold on to him for three days when it was supposed to be an overnight stay? The parents had filed a missing person report.

Matt Sablan said...

"The police did not mention an attempt to extort money, but why hold on to him for three days when it was supposed to be an overnight stay? The parents had filed a missing person report."

-- And it took the police three days to check with THE FRIEND THEY DROPPED HIM OFF WITH!?

Matt Sablan said...

If I were the parents, I'd be asking a lot of questions about how it took THREE DAYS for the police to investigate THE GUY I SAID THE MISSING PERSON WAS LAST WITH.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Other news reports say the kidnappers were texting the parents but no mention of what was in the texts. Demands for money?

Befriend mentally disabled kid at school so that you can get him to voluntarily go somewhere with you with the plan to demand money from his parents? You would have a moron to think that was a good idea, but obviously these people are "unfathomably stupid."

Matt Sablan said...

... This is sounding more and more like the news reports need some time to get the facts instead getting it first. So much confusion.

isthmus legend said...

The only reason these charges were filed was because the four young aspiring doctors and engineers filmed their vibrancy for the world to see.

John Cunningham said...

In Black-Ruled America, the Dindu Muffins can never do wrong or be racist.

Alex said...

The whole root of hate crime legislation is because the KKK had a lot of support for decades and there was a need to eradicate it. However the KKK is reduced to a few thousand members who are more bark than bite anymore and what use is this legislation other than virtue-signaling?

Ron Winkleheimer said...

I'm thinking the "friend" stayed away his usual residence, if he has one at all. That would make it hard for the cops to find him. But I'm also thinking that the cops thought process was that the kid was out partying and they had better things to do.

And now this happens and when it comes out how little effort they put into looking for the victim they will be embarrassed. So they will attempt to give out as little info as possible.

I'm talking those two cops who gave Jeffrey Dahmer one of his victims back level embarrassment.

Ron Winkleheimer said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ron Winkleheimer said...

is sounding more and more like the news reports need some time to get the facts instead getting it first. So much confusion.

Yeah, and just because the police say it that doesn't mean its necessarily accurate. They can be confused. And they always want to give the best impression possible.

Matt Sablan said...

"But I'm also thinking that the cops thought process was that the kid was out partying and they had better things to do."

-- If it was a regular kid, yeah. But if this really is a kid with special needs, I can't imagine cops just blowing it off. Mattering what those needs are, if the friend had been a perfectly good guy who brought him back where he thought he was supposed to, something unrelated bad could have happened.

isthmus legend said...

"Alex said...
The whole root of hate crime legislation is because the KKK had a lot of support for decades and there was a need to eradicate it. However the KKK is reduced to a few thousand members who are more bark than bite anymore and what use is this legislation other than virtue-signaling?"

The only reason the little people keep being bombarded by the left's hate-of-hate is because there needs to be a steady supply of (more often than not imagined) hate in order for the left to hate it. You know, the never-ending racist straw-man. Actually, there seems to be more of a demand for hate (again, to hate on) than there is an actual supply of hate. The KKK is powerless at this point in time. But they remain a required symbol for the left, so they can feel good about themselves. Meanwhile the left's race crusade has had real life spillover effects, like what we see here.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Trained CIA interrogator belly-slaps a suspected terrorist (while under direct supervision and medical monitoring): NYT says TORTURE!

4 18-yo "thugs" kidnap a mentally challenged kid, repeatedly pummel him, poke him w/cigarettes, cut up his clothes, slice his scalp/hair, etc...all for up to 48 hours: NYT says "beating."

Yeah, seems about right.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

William Chadwick said...Nothing to see here, people. Show's over. Keep it moving.

Remain calm.

Anonymous said...

isthmus legend: Actually, there seems to be more of a demand for hate (again, to hate on) than there is an actual supply of hate. The KKK is powerless at this point in time. But they remain a required symbol for the left, so they can feel good about themselves.

Those SPLC salaries don't pay themselves.

Rick said...

Alex said...
The whole root of hate crime legislation is because the KKK had a lot of support for decades and there was a need to eradicate it


Hate crimes came along decades after the Klan was destroyed. Hate crimes are an effort criminalize speech.

Suck it up

Gospace said...

Without reading the other comments first, This is why Trump won.

T.C. Mits knows this type of thing is happening, and wants it stopped. Liberals make excuses for it. What Trump will do is as yet unknown, but there is hope he'll do something to stop it.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

If it was a regular kid, yeah. But if this really is a kid with special needs, I can't imagine cops just blowing it off. Mattering what those needs are, if the friend had been a perfectly good guy who brought him back where he thought he was supposed to, something unrelated bad could have happened.

True, but its Chicago. I imagine that police resources could be spread rather thin.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Any statements yet from black leadership about this incident?

Known Unknown said...

Wouldn't the appropriate term be 'blackwashing'?

Gospace said...

If Dylann Roof is sentenced to death on the basis of committing a "hate crime", it should be a slam dunk for a competent set of lawyers to get a reversal at the Supreme Court. The law is applied in a racially discriminatory manner. Not only has no non-white ever been found guilt of committing a "hate crime", it can probably be shown that no non-white has ever been charged with a "hate crime".

If the Supremes refuse to reverse based on that, the social contract is broken.

Having said that, I think Dylann Roof should hang. (Hang, not sedated and pumped full of drugs.) But for what he did, not why he did it. As I think these Chicago thugs should hang. For what they did, not why they did it. The death penalty should be more widely applied and frequently applied. No one who has been put to death has ever committed another crime.

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