It's a criminal case whose victim bears the scars of a particularly heinous brutality – and whose motivation recalls the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. murders that outraged the nation.
But because it "fails to fit a preapproved script, you probably haven't even heard about it," says Erik Rush, author of a controversial new book on racial politics and manipulation.
"Were this a white-on-black hate crime," said Rush, "there is no escaping the fact that it would be national news for months, and every prominent black career civil rights activist in America would be calling for the death penalty."
The crime in question: Sixteen-year-old Shane McClellan walked from a friend's place to his West Seattle home. At 2 a.m., McClellan says two men asked him for a lighter. The men robbed him, beat him and "forced him up the stairs to a dead end and held him against his will for several hours," reports the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
"During this time," Det. Suzanne Moore wrote in a probable-cause document, "they beat him with their hands and feet, whipped him with his own belt, burned him with a lit cigarette, poured energy beer on him and urinated on him."
The report, which recounted the injuries to McClellan's face, ears, head, back and teeth, noted his alleged assailants – Ahmed Mohamed, who's black, and Jonathan Baquiring, who's Asian – taunted him with racial remarks during the attack.
Mohamed and Baquiring, reports Seattle’s KOMO News, held him at gunpoint and, "stripped off McClellan's belt and started whipping his back."
"They said, 'This is for what your people did to our people.' They were like whipping me with my belt, my studded belt," KOMO News reported McClellan as saying.
The incident occurred May 25 but only made headlines after recent police arrests, charging Mohamed and Baquiring with a hate crime. Even still, media coverage remains limited mostly to Seattle, something Rush said he finds "both baffling and revealing." More here
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
Divide and conquer.
ReplyDeleteWe don't need to be told it is a Hate Crime because the victim and the assailants were of a different race.
It is irrelevant. What they did was a crime. Period. End of story.
Prosecute crime.
Stop trying to get the rest of us to pay special attention to race.
I think the story simply attempted to illustrate how a reversal of race would have been received, if the same crime had taking place with the races being being the opposite of what they were. It would have had Black America up in arms, ready to burn and loot from their outrage, just like they did in L.A. with poor old Rodney's trial and getting beat. Even though old Rodney got millions of dollars from his L.A. lawsuit, he still managed to find time for doing his same old criminal stuff. Read the wiki account on Rodney king's aquittal and his connection to one of his jurors, now his present day fiance. When you hear people screaming Race, Race, Race, it's because something negative has happened to someone of their own race, otherwise they're silent.
ReplyDelete10:45 AM
ReplyDeleteThe report, which recounted the injuries to McClellan's face, ears, head, back and teeth, noted his alleged assailants – Ahmed Mohamed, who's black, and Jonathan Baquiring, who's Asian – taunted him with racial remarks during the attack
Our fault again isn't it?
Everyone should read Erik Rush's book. It truely is an eye opener and a good book.
ReplyDelete2:33
ReplyDeleteIt is a crime committed by the 2 suspects.
It can be prosecuted as it is. The race question goes toward motive. But the race question does not make the crime any more or less an offense.
I gotta ask (though I'm pretty sure I know the answer)--- what the heck is a 16 yr old boy doing "on the street" at 2am??? Sometimes, when you play the game, bad things happen to ya, or as I heard a judge say in court one time, "when you're looking for trouble, don't complain when you find it." Smart man, that judge (and that's something I don't get to say very often...).
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