UPDATED: Surprise! Andrew Breitbart and Glenn Beck don't know what a "hate crime" is
December 04, 2009 1:44 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
And it's confirmed by the FBI.
Backstory: Right-wingers like Andrew Breitbart and Glenn Beck claim SEIU union reps who were recently slapped on the wrist for "misdemeanor ordinance violations" in connection with an August altercation outside a town hall health care forum, ought to face "hate crime" charges for allegedly beating up Kenneth Gladney.
But as I noted earlier:
Meaning, Gladney, a black man, was allegedly punched by [Elston] McCowan, a black man, and now Breitbart and Beck want prosecutors to file hate-crime charges because McCowan was prejudiced against Gladney's race; because McCowan's assault was driven by his hatred of Gladney's race. That, despite the fact that Gladney and McCowan share the same race.
It made no sense that a black man would be charged with a hate crime for hitting another black man, even if the accused used a racial epithet just prior to the scuffle.
And what do you know, the FBI agrees. From its "Hate Crimes Data Collection Guidelines," the FBI cautions law enforcement about certain extenuating circumstances [emphasis added]:
2. Misleading Facts — Agencies must be alert to misleading facts. For example,
the offender used an epithet to refer to the victim’s race, but the offender and victim were of the same race.
According to the FBI, if the victim and the offender are "of the same race" than hate crime charges should not be brought.
UPDATED: Breitbart sure does have a tough time trying to decipher the law.
UPDATED: With all that right-wing funding, you'd think Breirtbart would put an attorney at retainer so his site wouldn't keep making these embarrassing gaffes.
Then again it's quite possible Breitbart's staff knows that it's wrong about the law and purposefully publishes falsehoods any way. After all, we are talking about conservative "journalism."
Considering their self-ropcliamed expertise on the difference between a "violent crime" and "terrosim" (hint: the perpetrator must, under no circumstances, be WHITE or NON-MUSLIM!) you'd think they'd be able to figure this out:
Hate Crime is to Crime pretty much as Terrorism is to Crime in that both are intended to intimidate a group of people, and thus the victims of said act extend beyond those immediately impacted by the act. About the only difference would be that terrorism seems to target the majority, or large populations, whilst hate crimes target minortiy groups and small populations.
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It ain't that hard.
Personally I believe that if someone kills someone else regardless of race it is a hate crime. I still haven't figured out why there needs to be more laws because of race when the Government needs to just enforce the laws that are already on the books.
It's a hate crime if a personal characteristic that the murdered person can't change, like their race, or ethnic origin, or sexual preference, is what motivates the crime.
The reason to have another law on the books is because it's more offensive to kill someone for those characteristics over just a murder that doesn't have that additional rationale.
The concept behind this kind of legislation is often misconstrued but here‘s the deal as I understand it. The idea is that the Federal Justice Department can get involved in a case to help local authorities or even to take the lead on a case if need be, in prosecuting individual serious violet crimes and murders in which the victim was selected on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability. The idea that crimes like that are intended not only to hurt or murder an individual but to terrorize an entire community.
And so there is a national interest in ensuring that those crimes are solved and prosecuted, particularly if local law enforcement doesn‘t want to because they are blinkered by the same prejudice that led to the crime in the first place.