Or be maimed, beaten, robbed for people to realize that Hate Crimes are real and something must be done? The sickening part is that the number of hate crimes reported by the FBI are way low as many victims are afraid to report the crimes, police departments file reports incorrectly , or states just fail to turn in the numbers to the FBI.
cross posted at Booman Tribune, refinish69,GLBT Democrats For Edwards, Daily Kos
INDOlink News Bureau
FBI Hate Crime Statistics Vastly UnderstatedHate crime statistics published by the FBI since 1992, based on voluntary reports from law enforcement agencies around the country, have shown annual totals of about 6,000 to 10,000, depending on the year. But the new report, “Hate Crimes Reported by Victims and Police,” found an average annual total of 191,000 hate crimes. That means the real level of hate crime runs between 19 and 31 times higher than the numbers that have been officially reported for almost 15 years.
“It’s an astounding report,” said Jack Levin, a leading hate crime expert at Northeastern University. “It’s not necessarily completely accurate, but I would trust these data before I trusted the voluntary law enforcement reports to the FBI.”
Hate Crimes are violent and devastating to anyone who lives through one and to the family and friends of those who die. I know this personally as I was beaten severely as a youth just for being Gay. I was laying on the ground in a fetal position and begging for them to stop when my older brother and some of his friends stopped the attack.
INDOlink News Bureau
According to the new report, hate crimes involve violence far more often than other crimes. The data showed 84% of hate crimes were violent, meaning they involved a sexual attack, robbery, assault or murder. By contrast, just 23% of non-hate crimes involved violence. Other studies have suggested that hate-motivated violence, is more extreme than other violence.
The hatred and intolerance of the Republican Party, Religious Leaders and the Religious Right only add fuel to the fire. Their constant attacks against the GLBT community and any other minorities sets an example for their followers. These high profile Bigots do not realize that their vileness only inflames their minions and some of the minions they have recruited to their cause only know violence as a means of dealing with issues. I am sure if a study was done of the voting patterns for the criminals involved they would either be republican or from republican
Those who don’t vote would be from the so called “religious” homes where intolerance is taught as a daily dose of “religion.”
The statistics for hate crimes are wrong but let’s look at them any way.
FBI Releases its 2005
Statistics on Hate CrimeAccording to statistics released today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 7,163 criminal incidents involving 8,380 offenses were reported in 2005 as a result of bias toward a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or physical or mental disability. Hate Crime Statistics, 2005, published by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program, includes data from hate crime reports submitted by city, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies throughout the Nation.
Hate Crime Statistics, 2005, includes the following information:
* An analysis of the 7,160 single-bias incidents by bias motivation revealed that 54.7 percent were motivated by a racial bias, 17.1 percent were triggered by a religious bias, 14.2 percent were motivated by a sexual-orientation bias, and 13.2 percent of the incidents were motivated by an ethnicity/national origin bias. Nearly 1 percent (0.7) involved bias against a disability.
* There were 5,190 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against persons in 2005. Intimidations accounted for 48.9 percent, simple assaults for 30.2 percent, and aggravated assaults for 20.5 percent. Six murders as well as 3 forcible rapes were reported as hate crimes.
* Of the 3,109 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against property, 53.6 percent were directed at individuals, 9.8 percent were against businesses or financial institutions, 8.9 percent were against government, and 6.8 percent were against religious organizations. The remaining 20.9 percent were directed at other, multiple, or unknown victim types. Damage/destruction/vandalism was the most frequently reported crime against property, accounting for 81.3 percent of the total.
* Of the 6,804 known offenders reported in 2005, 60.5 percent were white, and 19.9 percent were black. The race was unknown for 12.3 percent, and other races accounted for the remaining known offenders.
* The majority (30.0 percent) of hate crime incidents in 2005 occurred in or near residences or homes; followed by 18.3 percent on highways, roads, alleys, or streets; 13.5 percent at colleges or schools; 6.6 percent in parking lots or garages; and 4.3 percent at churches, synagogues, or temples. The remaining 27.3 percent of hate crime incidents occurred at other specified locations, multiple locations, or other/unknown locations.
To give you some idea of how skewed the numbers are, Alabama reported 0 hate crimes for 2005. Seems a little hard to believe that a southern state has absolutely no hate crimes of any kind in a full year. I would show numbers from 2006 but they will not be published until fall of this year.
Let’s meet some of the victims of Hate Crimes.
Satendar Singh, 26
Family and friends gathered today to say goodbye to a 26-year-old Sacramento man who succumbed to injuries he sustained during an alleged triple hate crime attack at Lake Natoma State Park last weekend.
Satendar Singh, 26, died Thursday, after his family agreed to take him off life support at Mercy San Juan Medical Center.
“Mr. Sing was not only of East Indian descent, he was also a Sikh and he was perceived of as being gay and that was the reason for the altercation,” said Ed Bennett, president of the gay and minority advocacy group Sacramento Stonewall Democrats.
Bennett told KCBS Singh was with a group of Fijan and Indian friends at a picnic area near the lake Sunday when a group of about six men approached them and picked a fight. The suspects had reportedly made homophobic and racial slurs toward Singh’s group throughout the day.
During the incident one of the men punched Singh, who then fell and hit his head, which put him into a coma. No one else was injured.
Sean William Kennedy, 20
An 18 year old man is facing a murder charge after a man he punched died.
The Greenville County Sheriff’s Office said that Sean William Kennedy, 20, was walking to his car from a local bar when a car stopped along side him. A man got out, approached Kennedy and then hit him in the face.
Witnesses said the man made a derogatory remark about Kennedy’s sexuality. The twenty-year old was openly gay friends said.
Kennedy later died in hospital without regaining consciousness. Investigators believe that after he was punched Kennedy fell to the ground and hit his head on a curb or the pavement.
Based on witness accounts of the attacker and car Sheriff’s deputies arrested Andrew Moller, 18.
David Ritcheson, 18
Texas hate crime victim jumps to death from cruise ship
An 18-year-old from Spring, Texas, who survived a vicious pipe attack last year died early Sunday after he jumped from a cruise ship into the Gulf of Mexico.
A family attorney confirmed Monday that David Ritcheson jumped from aboard the Ecstasy, a 70,000-ton Carnival Cruise Lines ship that sailed out of Galveston on Saturday for a five-day round-trip cruise to Cozumel, Mexico.
Ritcheson was attacked and sodomized by two teens in 2006, and underwent 30 surgeries to repair damage caused in the attack.
Keith Turner was sentenced to 90 years in prison for the assault that began as Ritcheson arrived at a friend’s house. David Henry Tuck was sentenced to life in prison in November.
Friends and family of Ritcheson poured into his Spring home on Sunday night after hearing about what happened. Relatives who answered the door did not want to comment.
Ritcheson went to Congress in April and urged lawmakers to pass the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007. There he told Congress about the attack, which he viewed as a hate crime because of his heritige, which he described as Mexican-American.
“This crime took place in middle-class America in the year 2006,” Ritcheson said during his testimony. “The reality that hate is alive, strong and thriving in the cities, towns and cul-de-sacs of suburbia, America was a surprise to me. America is the country I love and call home. However, the hate crime committed against me illustrates that we are still, in some aspects, a house divided.”
The U.S. House passed that hate crimes legislation just a few weeks after Ritcheson’s testimony. President Bush has indicated that if it passes the Senate, he will veto it.
Hate comes in all shapes and sizes but Hate Crimes need to be stopped and punished as severely as possible. I could continue listing people both male and female and of many races and religions who have been attacked orr killed just for being different. This has to end now and we have to be the ones who demand the change.
We also must demand that our public and religious leaders stop their hatred and intolerance. Their comments give implied permission to their followers to commit these vile crimes.
