Racial profiling? Hate Crime! Hate Crime? Self-Defense!
Published Tue, Nov 27 2007 9:54 AM
Technorati Tags: News
A lot of people are advocates of racial profiling to help prevent future terrorist attacks on our airliners, trains and other transportation systems. The arguments raised certainly have some merit. After all, we know that it wasn't 19 middle-aged women wielding lipstick that brought down the twin towers, it was 19 young males of Arabic descent.
The vast majority of terrorists that we face in the world today are Islamic Jihadis. There's not much doubt of that, unless you're from the very fringe of the far left. Then it's obvious that the terrorists are young, beefy American kids wearing military uniforms and their cult leader George Bush.
Myself, I sit on the fence over this. While it's obvious that the most radical of our enemies appear to be from middle-eastern countries the war on terror is against a global enemy. Our enemies have a global recruiting network. They have recruited people from all walks of life, including criminals, young people, and doctors to conduct their attacks.
Not all terrorist come from the middle east. Many western nations have their own home-grown domestic terrorists. Let's not forget about the I.R.A., although they seem to have largely given up on terrorism. Let's not forget about Timothy McVeigh.
So, in spite of all of the arguments for racial profiling, there are enough counter-examples that I think it's a fairly bad idea.
Of course, it's an even worse idea if you're a drunken idiot just ejected from the Apple Cup game…
A 20-year-old Kent man was arrested Saturday for allegedly assaulting a taxi driver in what police say may have been a hate crime.
The Washington State Patrol said the man was a passenger in the victim's cab. The 48-year-old driver, who is Sikh, was hospitalized after the alleged attack.
The suspect was released from the King County Jail on a $25,000 bond Monday night. He has not been charged.
The cab driver picked up the suspect before 8 p.m. Saturday at Husky Stadium, from which he had been escorted during the Apple Cup. The fan had apparently been attending the game with a friend who was an Iraq war veteran, said Trooper Jeff Merrill.
Shortly into the cab ride, the fan began yelling obscenities at the driver, using racial slurs and calling him an "Iraqi terrorist," Merrill said.
At some point the man began hitting the driver in the head and neck, and on southbound Interstate 5 near the West Seattle Bridge, the taxi driver pulled over on the shoulder and got out of the cab, Merrill said.
The passenger followed the driver, pushing him to the pavement, and continued to punch and kick him, Merrill said. During the brawl the passenger pulled off the taxi driver's turban and ripped out a chunk of the driver's scalp and hair, Merrill said.
This was clearly a case of racial profiling. But it was racial profiling carried out by an idiot. Somewhere there are literally thousands of villages without idiots waiting for this man to apply for the position.
The local Sikh's are calling on this to be prosecuted as a hate crime. I can understand that, and based on the way hate crime laws are written, it's likely to happen.
I hate hate crime laws. When — or maybe I should say if — this man is convicted for aggravated assault the judge should throw the book at him. There's no reason to tag it a hate crime though. The ordinary sort of crime that this was carries a stiff enough penalty.
…It does if the psychologists don't manage to get in the way and get the perpetrator therapy instead of punishment anyway.
Do you remember the story of the white guys that dragged a black man to his death by chaining him to a truck? Now that was an example of a hate crime. It was certainly brutal and premeditated murder.
Imagine what I thought when I read these words…
An Eastern Washington University student from Kitsap County was killed Saturday when he was dragged as far as four miles behind a pickup, reportedly after threatening people at a hunting campsite.
Four miles? That seems a bit excessive. The story goes on though, although it seems to have been edited quite a bit since I read it yesterday.
Sturman-Camyn was among eight people, some of whom were drinking heavily, at the Newman Lake man's hunting campsite, according to sheriff's deputies. Sturman-Camyn became angry and threatened others, saying he would come after them with an ax, witnesses told the deputies.
The 45-year-old man, who expressed fear for his safety, told a 17-year-old boy to get into the pickup "start it and be ready to leave if things got bad," Sheriff's Sgt. Alan Botzheim said in a news release.
The man then tied a rope to the trailer hitch of a 1996 white Ford pickup and placed the other end of the rope around Sturman-Camyn. He then yelled to the teenager to drive away, Botzheim said.
The teen didn't know what the man had done, and was apparently unaware he was dragging Sturman-Camyn when he drove away in fear, Botzheim said. The teenager called the sheriff's office at 11:27 p.m. and said he believed someone was chasing him down the road with an ax.
Notice the phrasing here. He tied a rope to the trailer hitch. He "placed" the other end around Sturman-Camyn. That sort of sounds planned to me. "Placing" a rope that's been tied to a trailer hitch around someone doesn't exactly sound like self-defense to me.
If Sturman-Camyn was such a threat I doubt that it was as simple as "placing" a rope around him. If I was being belligerent and was, as a follow-up story says a "martial arts enthusiast" (another follow-up story called the victim a "martial arts expert"), I doubt that it would be that simple to put a rope around my neck.
An autopsy Monday showed Sturman-Camyn died of strangulation and from being dragged over graveled and roughly paved roads. Tests to determine whether he had been drinking or had other drugs in his system were incomplete.
This is as strange a case of "self-defense" as I've ever heard of. I think this will be an interesting story to follow. Wendell C. Sinn Jr. is under investigation for charges of Second-degree murder or first-degree manslaughter. He was released after paying $100,000.00 bail yesterday.
These things happened here at home. There just isn't anyplace where you can completely avoid the insane violence of madmen and idiots.
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