Essay 4431

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

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‘Hate’ crime – it’s not black or white but gray

People feel that the law’s application is hit and miss

BY MARY MITCHELL Sun-Times Columnist

If a white person spray paints a black person’s home with racist graffiti, that person will likely be charged with a hate crime.

However, if a black person assaults a white person, more than likely the hate crime law won’t come into play. That has led to the perception that prosecutors are reluctant to charge blacks with a crime that is ordinarily committed against them, rather than by them.

So when black teens are accused of assaulting a white person and police deem the crime “random violence,” for many whites there is a nagging perception that the system is biased against white victims.

What we really have is a tepid law that can’t help but set us up for disappointment.

In fact, the biggest problem with any hate crime law -- including the move to expand our national Hate Crime Law -- is that one can never really know what’s in another person’s heart.

We can, and we do, assume a lot of things.

But unless there is hard evidence that a criminal attacked a person because of his or her gender, race, sexual orientation, mental or physical disability, it is not likely that a cross-racial crime -- no matter how heinous -- is going to be charged as a hate crime.

No line on motives
According to the City of Chicago’s Human Relations Commission, 80 hate crimes were reported in the city in 2006. Thus far in 2007, 50 hate crimes have been reported. Since the Cook County state’s attorney’s office has to compile records from various sources -- a feat, I’m told, that could take days -- it is unclear how many hate crimes actually have been prosecuted.

The only hate-crime incident I found reported locally was one about the burglary of a North Side Jewish temple in June. That temple was previously vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti. Also in June, a man filed a federal lawsuit claiming Chicago Police officers allegedly beat him because he is gay.

Although well-intended, the hate crime law fails to give us a view into the motives of the most heinous crimes, and thus fails to satisfy our desire to put hatemongers in a class by themselves.

When a person spray paints swastikas on a synagogue, or puts a burning cross in front of a black church, it rattles our collective civility. But many of us are appalled by cross-racial assaults like the one that occurred in the Beverly neighborhood last summer when 14-year-old Ryan Rusch was beaten by three African Americans.

Prosecutors argued at the time that designating the assault as a “hate crime” would not have enhanced the penalty, since the assailants had been charged with attempted murder.

While a hate crime charge automatically bumps a misdemeanor to a felony, charging someone with a hate crime who is already charged with a felony does not necessarily enhance the punishment.

For instance, one of the Rusch attackers, Micha Eatman, was acquitted on attempted murder, but convicted on charges of aggravated battery and robbery. He was sentenced to seven years in prison. Conviction of a first offense for a hate crime law carries a one- to three-year prison term.

Did ‘hate’ factor in Doan's death?
Still, charging this particular crime as a hate crime would have sent a strong message to other teens who think preying on white victims is some kind of joke.

The state’s attorney’s office is still investigating the July melee in Durkin Park that left one teen severely injured. Charges against a 15-year-old black teen who drove a car into a predominantly white and Hispanic crowd during that incident have also not been filed.

The controversial hate crime law came up again last week when the killing of Du Doan, a 62-year-old Asian fisherman, appeared to be a hate crime.

Doan was shoved into Montrose Harbor while he was fishing from the pier.

John J. Haley, 31, was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated battery in Doan’s death. Apparently, Haley had threatened another man, described as being Asian, earlier that same night. He also has been charged with pushing another fisherman into the lake on July 31. That man survived.

Although it was initially reported that all of the people victimized by Haley were Asian, an anonymous caller told me that the man who was catapulted into the harbor in the earlier incident was not Asian, but a white male.

That, of course, is little comfort to Du Doan’s widow and family.