David Duke’s European-American Unity and Rights Organization is demanding that the six black high schoolers accused of attacking white UVa students be charged with committing hate crimes. Says a EURO rep, “there is a lack of fairness in enforcing the hate-crimes laws and if they are not going to apply it fairly, it shouldn’t be a law.” Adrienne Schwisow has the story in today’s Progress.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
four six and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
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It’s so annoying when a group you really despise comes to the defense of a position you support. In an ideal world, we would have seen the ACLU making statements like this, rather than some neo-KKK organization. Oh well.
Hopefull, people will be able to separate the message from the messenger.
I too was wondering where the ACLU has been hiding on this one.
But on which side would the ACLU come down? My guess is that they would defend the alleged assailants for being victimized by “society and/or the man”.
The ACLU is so full of shi*.
I’d suspect that the ACLU, if they get involved, will be on the same side as these hate groups. Heck, they made headlines when they defended similar hate groups in the past (and they were right then, too, as unpleasant as it was), so I don’t think they’ll have any qualms with taking sides with them. The ACLU isn’t afraid of taking an unpopular position, as we’ve seen many times.
It is a shame that David Duke’s organization is entering the fray. I doubt the public’s collective intelligence will be adequate to separate the message from the messenger.
–jd
Hmm, how interesting it is to see a hate group calling for anti-hate legistlation to be used. But as much as I really dislike taking sides with these guys, I have to say they’re right. If we’re going to have anti-hate legislation, it has to be enforced indiscriminately.
On an interesting aside, this whole case seems very fishy to me. Despite the local media’s claims of six arrests, everyone who I’ve talked to in the black community says that the police have only arrested three people: two boys and one girl, all of whom are people who I knew in the city schools, and the two guys were even friends with my younger brother. What’s even more interesting is that the girl and one of the boys were extremely prominent athletes and had even aquired athletic scholarships to good colleges. What on earth, then, were these kids doing out assaulting people without reason when they stood to lose so much, especially that which was so difficult for them to get?
The police say they identified these kids by videos from the surveillance cameras all over UVA (?!). They say that that video, filmed at night, showed the perpetrators so clearly that they were able to walk into the yearbook office at CHS, browse through the pictures, and identify the perps from their yearbook photos. That sounds like a stretch, to me. We have an expensive, brand new, night-oriented security camera system that was just put in here at our office, but the picture quality makes it pretty difficult to recognize someone I know, even when only about twenty feet from the camera, leave alone someone I’ve never seen before more than fifty feet away. Maybe that process really did work for them, but given the technology that I’ve seen, I find that hard to believe.
While it’s a complete suprise to me that any of those three kids would be involved in such an act, the two boys suprise me the most. Both were good students and well-behaved, unlike many of their friends. The athlete of the two was also one of the most mild-mannered people I’d ever met, and I simply cannot bring myself to believe that he was involved in this thing because he hated white people. None of the three ever gave the slightest indication of racism. In addition, the police claim that he was the one who repeatedly stopmed his booted foot on one victim’s face, breaking their cheek bone. I don’t believe that for a second.
I know, I know, it’s always the ones you don’t suspect, but the media’s claim that they said they did it “because they were white” has never sat well with me, and I simply don’t buy it. There are too many pieces here that don’t fit properly for me to believe that this whole thing is as simple as the local media makes it out to be.
And unfortunately, we lack a reliable and trustworthy source of media information which could investigate this and properly disseminate whatever they found.
Still, their silence is deafening.
“I know, I know, it’s always the ones you don’t suspect, but the media’s claim that they said they did it “because they were white” has never sat well with me, and I simply don’t buy it.”
How about the perpetrators admitted it themselves!!! There is no “media claim” here. This is what the police said that they said. The media didn’t just make this up…
And unfortunately, we lack a reliable and trustworthy source of media information which could investigate this and properly disseminate whatever they found.
True. cvillenews.com is good for disseminating information, but investigating or confirming that information? Uh-huh.
Waldo, did you mean Uh-huh or un-huh?
I didn’t mean that in that I didn’t believe the kids said that (though I don’t think they all did), I meant it in that I didn’t believe the kids. I mean, think about it. These were smart kids, so I find it hard to believe that they just said, “Hey, we hate white people, so let’s go out and beat the shit out of some.” Also, how could saying they did it it because they were white possibly help them? It only opens them up to addition charges, such as hate-crimes.
I meant “heck no.” :)
You are so right, of course they will be on the side of the attackers. ACLU is ridiculous.
What makes you think these were smart kids?
Like I said in my previous post, I knew them.
I’m with Will on this. The ACLU has had a history of opposing hate-crimes as an infringement on the 1st amendment (legislating thought, instead of conduct). My guess is that they’ll stay out of it, but if pressed would oppose any hate-crime legislation.
Do you actually know anything about the ACLU, or are you just being a knee-jerk anti-liberal PC-paranoiac? The ACLU defended the right of the National Socialist Party of America (i.e., the American Nazi party) to march in predominantly Jewish Skokie, Illinois, in 1979. They’ve always been big on protecting the rights of bigots, racists, homophobes, etc.
As I understand it, the kids didn’t admit that they hated white people and that’s why they picked white victims. What I’ve read is that they admitted that they picked white victims. There’s a difference.
You don’t have to hate someone to victimize them. Maybe they chose white victims because they thought it would be easier to beat up/intimidate/whatever white victims. So, not “we hate white people, let’s beat them up,” but “white people are easy targets, let’s beat them up.” Opportunism rather than hate.
And if it’s not hate motivating your crime, is it a hate crime?