If a group of white people kidnap and torture you while calling you the n-word for several days, don't expect the federal government to get involved and apply federal hate crime charges against them if you happen to know any of the Klan-inspired gang members personally.
The Justice Department
has just announced that six men accused of sexually assaulting and torturing a young black woman for up to a week in Big Creek, West Virginia will not face federal hate crime charges due to evidence that undercuts the hate crime law.
“She obviously had some sort of social relationship,” Logan County Prosecutor Brian Abraham said. “That is based on the fact that she was present at his residence on a prior date.”
The federal hate crime law dictates that crimes must be motivated by racial hatred and not by non-race-related conflicts.
According to the criminal complaints, Williams’ captors, all of them white, choked her with a cable cord and stabbed her in the leg while calling her a racial slur, poured hot water over her, made her drink from a toilet and made her eat dog feces and rat droppings.
She was also beaten and sexually assaulted during a span of about a week, according to the complaints.
It wasn’t until an anonymous tip led Logan County Sheriff’s deputies to the property on Saturday that her ordeal ended. She limped toward the deputies, her arms outstretched as she cried, “Help me!”
This obviously sounds like nothing more than the settling of a personal vendetta that isn't the least bit motivated by any form of prejudice. Subjecting her to sub-human conditions that racists believe black people deserve, along with hurling racial epithets at her while doing so is just a coincidence.
At one point, an assailant cut the woman’s ankle with a knife and used the N-word in telling her she was victimized because she is black, according to the criminal complaints.
But she knew one of them, so it's
not a hate crime. I get the Justice Department's rationale, but come on.
Never fear, though:
Logan County Prosecutor Brian Abraham said his office would pursue other charges first because they carry stiffer penalties.
Now all we have to do is leave the fate of the six non-hate crime committing racists to a jury of their peers. I'm sure we can depend on West Virginia for justice.
The Cynical Ones.
