The illusive definition of a "Hate Crime"

From the San Mateo Daily Journal...

On March 4, [Tiffany] Adler reportedly lobbed apples and asparagus at a gay couple walking on the 500 block of Esplanade Drive. The van in which she was riding then turned around and Adler yelled “faggot” at the men, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

Pacifica police reported finding asparagus in Adler’s purse at the time of arrest.

Adler reportedly said the couple frequented the grocery store at which she works. She told police she was unaware the victims were gay and her actions were based on a prior conflict rather than discrimination.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe sees it differently.

“We definitely think this is a hate crime,” he said. “This one is pretty offensive.”

Throwing asparagus! Oh the humanity..

It's amazing how the police work these things out.

Now, me, when when four Black girls beat three white women while shouting racial slurs, I would call that a hate crime, but the police, using their amazing powers of "discernment" labeled it a mere assault, and the girls were given minimal sentences.

When a homosexual man raped, stabbed, strangled and beat a coworker who he knew was a devout Catholic, because he disagreed with her religious views, then stuffed her bloody body in a crawl space under the floor of his apartment, I would have thought it was a hate crime. But no the police said it was just another murder.

When three self-proclaimed Satanists burned nine churches to the ground, me, in my naïveté assumed it was definitely a hate crime. But no, the police in their inimitable wisdom declared that it was merely a college prank.

When a gunman, shouting anti-Christian slurs, murdered nine church members in a Fort Worth church, I also, foolishly, assumed it would have been  hate crime. But, once again, the police declared that the incident was definitely not a hate crime, but simply the act of a deranged man.

It just goes to show you how difficult a job the police have in determining what is and isn't a hate crime, and why it should be left in the hands of "experts".

Me, I'm thinking it must be the asparagus. Yeah, definitely the asparagus.

Posted by Danny Carlton at April 17, 2007 7:11 AM