I will add this... I actually
was assaulted by a gang of 14 year olds in New York City in Manhattan, when I lived there back in the late '70s. I was about 25 years old at the time. Individually, I was physically bigger than any one of them, but there were about 10 of them, and just one of me. They surrounded me while I was walking home from the market and had two bags of groceries in my arms. I set the bags down while they threw trashcans and bottles at me. Then they began to run in at me, always from behind, so I had to constantly turn to face the attacker. I had recently earned a brown belt, and I was confident that I could handle one or two at a time, but not all 10 of them. I managed to maneuver myself so that I had part of a wall at my back, and then it became a bit of a Mexican standoff. Other than getting struck by a couple of bottles and dodging a trashcan, I was relatively unscathed. By then, they had grabbed and emptied my grocery bags and thrown my stuff all over the sidewalk. At that point, a cop who lived in the neighborhood walked around the corner, still in uniform. The boys ran off.
The cop didn't really get a good look at any of them, or what they looked like. He just sort of stumbled on the scene and they split, just as quickly as they had appeared. But about 2 or 3 weeks later, I walked into a pet food store that was on my block, and that same cop was in there visiting the owners... ...and the leader/instigator of that gang was also in there - by himself. The cop just didn't realize who he was. So I just stopped in the doorway, locked eyes with the kid, who immediately recognized me, and I smiled. I just stood in the doorway, blocking it so he couldn't leave. He tried to force his way past me, and that got the cop's attention. Once the cop saw it, I then stood aside and let the cop deal with it. I never saw any of those little [insert expletive]s again.
OK, so that was 33 years ago, and I still have some vivid impressions from the event.
1. Even though they were only about 14 years old, they were fearless in numbers. And even when I caught that one in the pet food store by himself,
he was fearless. When we locked eyes, he did not look the least bit intimidated. Instead, he was defiant and proud, like "I
own this neighborhood, and just what do you think you're going to do about it?" He was not the least bit afraid to approach me and try to force his way past me. He was fully capable of murder if it came to it.
2. I don't care how badass any of anyone thinks he or she is, you can't beat 10 determined young teenagers who have no fear of you at all in a physical fight. Numbers trumps size and strength differentials. Just watch a bunch of wolves go after an elk.
3.
Don't count on any help from passers by. This happened on a New York City sidewalk, at about 5 p.m., in broad daylight, and there were
dozens of witnesses who saw it, and kept on walkin'. Nobody even called the cops on my behalf. Not one. And some were my neighbors, who knew me, and they
still didn't want to get involved. The cop who
did appear just happened to be walking home, still in uniform, but he was off-duty, and he had no idea this was happening until he walked around a corner and stumbled onto it.
4. A gun in my hand would have dramatically shifted the balance of power. The State and City of New York have determined that it would be better that I be beaten to death by a gang than it would be for for even one gang member to be wounded or killed in the attempt. New York is an immoral and corrupt state, and the city is an immoral and corrupt city. I will never go back there again. They can kiss my grits.
Kythas wrote:Excaliber wrote:The Annoyed Man wrote:However, if the incident is determined to be racially motivated, the battery charge could be elevated to a felony via a so-called hate-crime enhancement.
Let me get this straight.... The white kid is listening to some rap music (Lord knows why), and he is approached by a gang of black kids who tell him that he shouldn't be listening to rap music (I agree, but for different reasons)
because he's white, and then they - the black kids - give him a whuppin' for being white and listing to rap. If he was black and listening to rap, they would not have had the same "justification" to assault him.
What's left to determine? It
WAS racially motivated. There is no
other reason. They didn't beat on him because he has brown hair. They
STATED their reasons. They beat on him for being white skinned. What do they have to do.... drag him behind a pickup truck before somebody gives a rip? How simple does it have to be for the laws of the land to begin to apply equally to all of us, regardless of skin color.
This was a hate crime. Plain and simple.
Under current law, that's correct. However, I'm not at all in favor of the concept of using an offender's supposed reason for the crime as an element of the offense and calling it a "hate crime" if it falls into certain categories. This may be relevant to establishing a motive, but doesn't have any impact on what happened as a result. Our laws were simpler and justice more even handed when they focused only on
what you did and whether you
intended to do it or not.
Consider: If the fact pattern had been the same in this case except the offender didn't state his reasoning, would that have made it a
love crime?
In my mind, the only legitimate considerations in law should be the intent, the act, and the result.
I agree 100%. To me, any crime is a hate crime. After all, someone doesn't victimize you because they love you.
The whole "hate crimes" thing is a PC provision to the law.
And I agree with both of you whole-heartedly. "Hate crime" is a bogus category, and it should never have been established as a matter of law - because its
intent was to give special status to a category of victims based on skin color or ethnicity or sexual preference, which is tantamount to unequal protection under the law for people not qualifying for that category. But, here is a fact: it
does exist as a legal definition, and it
is being used unfairly against just
one ethnic group. That is an undeniable fact.
Just once, in the interest of fair play, I would like to see the definition applied against an accused person, for whom it is usually reserved as a victim, because that's what it
is by
legal definition. The reason I would like to see that is because
it would be a teaching moment. The law is the law, and it should apply equally to all citizens, regardless of color, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, religious persuasion, or planet of origin. A black person who commits murder is just as guilty as a white person who commits murder. A black person who commits a crime against a member of another race,
motivated by the victim's race, is just as guilty as the white person who commits a crime against a member of another race,
also motivated by the victim's race. The law is, or should be, impartial. Remember "
Blind Justice?"
The
fastest way to see that the category of "hate crimes" is removed from the books - where it
has no place - is to apply the law equally, blindly, regardless of the racial/ethnic category of the accused. When that happens, then race-baiters will start to wake up and realize that, maybe, this wasn't such a good idea after all -
because it makes the law fundamentally unfair to both the accused and the victim.
Until that happens, "hate crimes" will always exist as a special category of crime which is unequally applied
only against white people; and it will continue to exist because nobody else's ox gets gored. "Hate crimes,"
unevenly applied, is a fundamentally un-American value, because it establishes that one group of citizens has fewer rights before the bar than other groups. Since the law will
never be equally applied, it should be abolished.
Kythas, the one thing I would disagree with you on is your statement to the effect that all crime is hate crime. Here's why. Hatred is an emotion, and sometimes it doesn't even factor in. A criminal mindset might look like this: "You got that donut money. I
want your donut money, so I'm going to take it. I don't
care about you. You mean nothing to me. I just want that donut money. So, this is my gun; now give me the money."
The emotion of hatred actually implies that the object of the hate actually
does mean something to the hater. But if the criminal is clinically sociopathic, then he/she feels
nothing one way or the other against the victim. The victim just happens to have the misfortune to be standing between the criminal, and what the criminal wants.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
#TINVOWOOT
I would say "Okay" turn the music off and leave if possible.
(< I wish this guy had braids)
