Anatomy of a Hate Crime (Part Three)

Perhaps no other domestic social issue divides the two major political parties more than hate crimes and hate crime legislation. You'd be hard-pressed to find an issue with such consistent party-divided voting records as the ones that occur regarding hate crime legislation. In 2000, for instance, the U.S. Senate voted on the "Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act of 2000", a hate crime amendment (S. Amdt. 3473) meant to beef up an already existing federal hate crime law sponsored by Senator Ted Kennedy. The amendment vote had 44 of 45 Democrats voting for the measure (only West Virginia's Robert Byrd opposed it) whereas only 13 of 55 Republicans voted for it (one Republican abstained). The amendment fell short by three votes to move it closer toward passage. A second attempt to strengthen hate crime laws was made in 2002. That year the Senate voted on the "Local Law Enforcement Act of 2001", and like the Senate's vote in 2000, the outcome was highly partisan. Only one Democrat (South Dakota's Tom Daschle) voted against it; and, only four Republicans voted for it. Three Republicans abstained and the measure was defeated (this time by six votes).

As the Democrats were in the past with racial desegregation legislation, they appear again to be in a tug-of-war with Republicans over one of today's important civil rights issues: hate crime legislation. For example, President Bush threatened last year to veto a hate crimes bill that might have gone to his desk had it been passed by Congress. That would have been only Bush's third veto as President; but, the measure did not make it to his desk, because it was suffocated when it was connected to an unpopular Iraqi War funding bill. It doesn't take a genius to predict that a federal law both bolstering aid to local law enforcement in their efforts to go after hate crime offenders and including sexual orientation as a protected category will pass once the Democrats have control of both the White House and the Congress. Until then, local law enforcement agencies will struggle to investigate and prosecute hate crimes, and elected Republicans (except freshman Oregon senator Gordon H. Smith and a few others) will likely continue to vote against and to slander hate crime legislation as they have done repeatedly.

In two previous blogs (Anatomy of a Hate Crime, Parts One & Two) I have reported on the national social climate surrounding one recent hate crime allegation out of Champaign, Illinois. It is a case involving an alleged gay bashing of a University of Illinois student, Steven Velasquez, that saw little media coverage; yet, even with scant media attention the internet was abuzz, in places, about the allegation. As I initially blogged getting answers to questions about the Champaign, Illinois hate crime allegation has proved difficult, although I learned the accused, Brett Vanasdlen (sometimes spelled VanAsdlen), was a star college baseball player at Parkland College where he is a freshman. While the legal end to this story is not yet in sight (the next court date is July 1, 2008), Brett Vanasdlen was temporarily kicked off of the baseball team following his arrest in early April, though his coach has said he expects Vanasdlen to be back in uniform by next season. (The Parkland College Cobras are fairing quite well without Vanasdlen, losing just 9 of the 27 games they played since he was removed from the team). If convicted of the hate crime he has been charged with (a fourth degree felony) Vanasdlen could do jail time.

Since initially blogging about the Vanasdlen case, where I have stressed that but for the angle and force of a single punch or shove a hate crime assault could become a hate crime murder, other hate crime head-injury victims have had their lives forever changed, yet punishment has not followed. Hate-based assaults targeting gay men have become so common in Boston, Massachusetts recently that the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office has hired a victim's advocate for sexual minority hate crime victims to help them as their legal cases navigate their way from indictment to trial or plea agreement.

Although Boston-area victims and their families have the needed support from their local D.A.'s office, nearly all other Americans are much less fortunate. Take, for example, the March 2, 2008, race-based hate crime murder of a young black man in Los Angeles, Jamiel Shaw, Jr., 17, a star football player at his high school. Shaw's family has had less than an empathic response from the L.A. D.A.'s office which has thus far refused to file a hate crime charge against the Latino man they believe is responsible for gunning down the teenage athlete solely because of his race. Shaw's parents have been pressing the D.A.'s office to file such a charge and they have been pushing for a law that would allow L.A. police to ask criminal suspects about their immigration status (Shaw's alleged killer is an illegal alien who had previously been jailed and had his immigration status been uncovered while incarcerated, Jamiel Shaw, Jr. would be alive today). Here is an example of how victims of hate crimes are sometimes treated by those whose job it is to prosecute criminals as reported by the Associated Press on May 13:

The rift between the Shaws and the district attorney's office was exposed last week when Jamiel Shaw Sr., 47, and his ex-wife Anita Shaw, 43, met with District Attorney Steve Cooley to complain about Michele Hanisee, the prosecutor on the case. Jamiel Shaw said Hanisee pressured him to stop pushing for the law and threatened to depict their son as a gang member unless they dropped demands that she prosecute the case as a hate crime.

Depict Jamiel Shaw Jr., as a gang member? Ah, prosecutorial discretion. It reminds one of Ohio artist Jenny Holzer's famous phrase: the abuse of power should come as no surprise. At least Hanisee was booted off as prosecutor after the Shaws' complaints, so perhaps Jamiel's parents will have an ally in the newly-appointed D.A. Although some on the outer fringes of sociopolitical conservatism have attempted to use Shaw's murder for an opportunity to bellow an anti-illegal immigration song (which is really a racist, anti-Latino song) instead of focusing on what the tragedy appears to be by many--yet another hate crime murder of an African-American man in the United States--these same conservatives go silent when immigrants who happen to be white evangelical Christians commit hate crimes against homosexuals. Just as nativists are trying to re-paint Jamiel Shaw Jr.'s senseless hate crime murder into something it isn't for sociopolitical gain, some anti-gay activists and a few white nationalists (such as the like-minded former Ku Klux Klan head, David Duke) are trying to alter the reality of the Vanasdlen-Velasquez hate crime assault case. In doing so the blogsite, DailyKos, (where this blog was initially posted) has been called a "hate site" by one of Brett Vanasdlen's cheerleaders, Peter LaBarbera (never mind that DailyKos is featured on the website blogroll of one of the nation's hardest-working anti-hate organizations, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and never mind that that immensely respected anti-hate organization has exposed Peter LaBarbera for the poisonous man that he is).

As I've said in previous blogs, the support for the accused, Brett Vanasdlen, has been loud. However, some of his supporters have gone beyond merely supporting him. They've attacked the concept of hate crimes and the need for hate crime laws (and they like to put the words hate crimes in quotes as if to pretend these crimes do not exist), and in doing so they have used Brett Vanasdlen as a pawn for their cause. With groundless accusations from Ronalee Vanasdlen, Brett's mother, they have accused the Champaign, Illinois police department of "trumping up" a hate crime charge against Brett to meet some sort of hate crime arrest quota. (Seriously, who's heard of such a thing: purposefully increasing hate crime arrests would likely only leave people with the perception that the town is unfriendly and steer people away from it, and no police chief who wants to keep his or her job would dare speak such patently illegal nonsense let alone make it policy). With the assistance of his mother, they've focused on the alleged assailant's religion claiming the Champaign, Illinois hate crime assault case is about religious freedom and not about a case of homophobia-fueled violence as the police allege. Brett's mother calls herself and her son "conservative Christians" and she reported that the Vanasdlens attend an off-label Christian church in Brett's small Illinois hometown of Minooka. A little digging reveals that their church is a Rapture-focused evangelical one that declares its believing members are "holy" and "saints". That's the kind of we're-better-than-you arrogance needed to fertilize a hate crime, and the kind of arrogance that can tarnish all humble Christians with a bad name. Brazenly, a few self-identified Christians have posted accusations that the victim in the case, Steven Velasquez, is trying to forward some type of homosexual agenda.

This latter assertion is cruel and has nothing to do with the type of Christianity that many Americans practice--including many Evangelical Christians such as Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter--the type where bearing false witness against someone is forbidden by God. The cruel accusation is like asserting that when a female rape victim goes to court to testify, she is doing so because she has some feminist axe to grind, and not because she wants to see justice prevail. It's a hideous character-smearing claim made about Steven Velasquez with no basis in fact made all the more grotesque given that the only agenda that is being forwarded in the Vanasdlen-Velasquez case is the one by anti-hate crime activists and anti-gay activists. They have claimed that "the hateful homosexual spin machine" is running at full-tilt activism (and they talk like DailyKos is one cog in that machine), simply because two gay-themed blogsites--Box Turtle Bulletin and 2015place--have mentioned the hate crime allegation (in addition to my diaries). In reality the opposite is true: only the anti-hate crime/anti-gay folks are calling for action. They are demanding that the felony hate crime charge against Brett Vanasdlen be dropped (which, prior to a finding of fact, they have determined is "bogus"), and they have called for their supporters to make telephone calls to the D.A.'s office not to influence the outcome of the legal process, but to kill it. Anti-hate crime activist and notorious anti-Semite, Reverend Ted Pike, has urged his whacky following to call the Champaign, Illinois mayor and police chief to protest Brett Vanasdlen's arrest. Their activism suggests they want more than hate crime legislation overturned; it suggests they want religious-based gay bashings made legal. So much for Brett Vanasdlen's constitutional right to a trial and Steven Velasquez's constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness.

What has also occurred since Brett Vanasdlen's first pre-trial hearing (held on May 6th) is that Brett's mother, Ronalee, injected herself smack into the middle of her son's hate crime story by proclaiming "We're being persecuted" (although she was not at the alleged crime scene and, as such, she has been charged with no wrongdoing). I can find no comments about the mother of four that even remotely sound persecutory--by the press or by any bloggers. Ronalee Vanasdlen has not said who, when, or specifically how she has been persecuted vis-à-vis her son's arrest (she also said the arrest of her son has been an ordeal for her and her family, and I don't doubt it, as I'm sure the incident has been for Steven Velasquez, the man who was rendered unconscious and taken to the hospital on the night Brett Vanasdlen was arrested). Ronalee Vanasdlen's "we're being persecuted" line just sounds tabloidish, narcissistically sad in a lime-light-grabbing kind of way, not to mention desperate, and it clouds the fact that her son is innocent of a crime until proven guilty in court. Yes, her false claims of persecution, and her false claims that the Champaign, Illinois police department has a hate crime quota policy erases whatever credibility one might afford Brett in his latest (post-defense-attorney-hiring) remarks about the case (remarks that, according to even his supporters, are markedly different from what he told the police at the time he was busted in early April). I, for one, grow highly suspicious when a criminal defendant starts changing his story, and that suspicion turns to a loud peal of laughter when arrest-quota conspiracy theories get introduced.

Ronalee Vanasdlen has further claimed her son was so blithely unconcerned about his arrest that, she claims, he failed to make supposedly important statements to the police. Oops. She also said Brett "never dreamed that something like this could happen to him." Well, really, how could he: he was raised to believe that he is "holy" and a "saint". Brett Vanasdlen's mother also asserts that her son is "so naïve it’s scary" and thus he could not grasp the gravity of his being arrested. Really? What's not to get about a set of handcuffs being placed on you, taking a ride to the police station in the backseat of a patrol car by men in blue uniforms, and the Miranda Warning being given to you prior to the mug-shot and the fingerprinting? That level of cluelessness--if the statement by his mother about his naivety is true--makes one wonder whether Brett Vanasdlen didn't leave Purdue University after just one semester because he couldn't conquer the strenuous academic load required there (his advocates say he scaled down to an in-state, lesser school--one that requires not even a GED for admission--to have more "playing time" on the baseball team). Regardless of the reason for his transfer to Parkland College this past semester, here's the thing about Brett Vanasdlen and naivety: Brett Vanasdlen is not so naïve as to have failed to learn anti-gay slurs (learned where mom?) and he is not so naïve as to have failed to direct said homophobic slurs at a gay man walking down the street (that part of the hate crime allegation is not in dispute by either side in the Vanasdlen-Velasquez case). If you're trying to find Jesus' do-unto-others teaching in those acts, forget it, they aren't there.

Additionally, Ronalee Vanasdlen also has complained how much money her son's privately retained attorney will likely cost. She fails to grasp that moaning about attorney's fees sounds like an upper-middle-class person bitching about their upper-middle-class privilege (how many Americans have the luxury of being able to actually afford to retain a criminal defense attorney?); it falls on deaf ears the way complaints about the high cost of a vintage bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon hits the ears of working-class Joes when made by rich, long-time diners at Spago's or the French Laundry. If worse comes to worse, Ronalee Vanasdlen--who lives on her enormous Vanasdlen family compound--could use some of her rental income from one of her two resort condominiums to help her son foot his legal bills. From her Naples Bay Resort condominium alone, she rakes in between $3,800 and $6,500 per month. In addition, Ronalee Vanasdlen's Dominican Republic property nets her between $2,800 to $4,200 a month, so even if her son's legal bills go as high as she says ($20-$30K), that only totals a few months of her rental income. Also, boo-hooing about attorney's fees posted at hate-fomenting websites that ask for donations comes close to cyber-begging for your hateful sociopolitical cause. Any thinking member of her evangelical church must be worried that Ronalee Vanasdlen's obsession with hanging onto every possible almighty dollar has got to be lessening her chances of her resurrection when the Rapture happens.

If Ronalee Vanasdlen's views about hate crime laws weren't so similar to those shared by a still-bigoted ex-Klansman (David Duke), and the likes of someone discredited by a large body of psychologists for his homophobic propaganda peddled as respectable social science (Peter LaBarbera), and if she weren't using anti-gay/anti-hate crime hate mongers (like Ted Pike and the far right news agency World Daily Net) to blame a host of people, institutions and laws for her son's legal situation, one might feel some pity for the woman whose eldest son is possibly facing jail time next year instead of his sophomore year in college. Instead, Ronalee Vanasdlen comes off as sympathetic as the character of Hillary Swank's mother in Clint Eastwood's film Million Dollar Baby and as classy as Brandine Spuckler.

The reality is that Brett Vanasdlen is a grown man expected to be responsible for his own actions including decisions about his finances (he supports his education at Parkland College via an athletic scholarship after all). If he had chosen, he could have a public defender represent him instead of a pricey private attorney (of course, he also might have chosen to not hurl an anti-gay slur at Steven Velasquez). It's hard not to conclude Brett's mother should have taken the advice of her son's attorney and kept mum on the whole incident. The sum total of Ronalee Vanasdlen's politically- and personally-motivated baseless complaints and her alignment with homophobic, racist, and anti-Semitic hate-mongers, coupled with her assertion that her son, Brett Vanasdlen, is "so naïve it's scary", now makes one wonder how far away the apple and the tree are here.

Anatomy of a Hate Crime (Part Two)

We know from examining the FBI's hate crime statistics from 2006 that hate crimes based on hatred toward non-heterosexuals accounted for 1,387 of all 9,080 hate crimes reported to the FBI in 2006. Over nine hundred gay men were the victims of reported hate crimes that year; they constituted 9.46% of all reported hate crime victims. That percentage is totally out of proportion to the estimated percent of gay men that make up the population of the United States which is about 2.8%, according to a reputable study from the National Health and Social Life Survey by Edward O. Laumann, John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Stuart Michaels titled "The Social organization of sexuality in the United States". In other words in 2006 gay men were 3.38 times more likely to be the victim of a reported hate crime (often genteelly called a bias-motivated crime) than would be expected. Reported is an operative word here because there is some federal data that for every hate crime reported, there are about 20 that go unreported. Logic thus dictates that the relative risk for gay men is much higher than 3.38. We also know from examining the FBI's hate crime data that most hate crimes involving violence directed at a person (such as murder, rape, etc.) are of the assault variety (aggravated and simple assault). Again looking at the FBI's most recent dataset, we learn that of the 5,449 reported hate crimes directed against persons (not property) in 2006 most (53.5%) were assaults.

Most hate crimes are barely covered by the media--unless they end in murder as in the case of Larry King, end in permanent disfigurement or damage as in last year's David Richeson case or involve torture as in the Megan Williams case last year. If a non-lethal hate crime is covered by the press at all it typically involves only reporting that a suspected hate crime occurred; if an alleged perpetrator happens to be apprehended immediately following the hate crime incident, that too will be reported. Rarely, however, do journalists follow-up on a case, following it through to the end of its life: to conviction or acquittal. It's ironic that assault crimes targeting gay men are so common that we've coined a term for them, but yet they scarcely go noticed by us, in large part because they go unreported by the press. Few, it seems, care about gay bashings except the bashers themselves. Or, perhaps, such assaults are as common as summer baseball games, and so, from the perspective of a media editor, unless there is something unique about a particular hate crime assault, it's not considered worthy to report.

In my previous blog (Anatomy of a Hate Crime, Part One), I began my attempt (as a non-journalist) to report as much as I could about one hate crime assault allegation (on a college student named Steven Velasquez) and the alleged perpetrator of that crime for reasons detailed in that diary. Let me repeat a point from that blog, a point not to be lost when reading this one. But for the angle or force of any particular punch or shove any hate crime assault could have been a hate crime murder. Last year alone two young gay men, targeted precisely because they were gay, were each punched only once; both died. Trying to obtain some basic factual information about the case I am following and reporting has proved difficult as I said in my previous diary. It's interesting who's communicated with me, who hasn't, and perhaps most interesting of all, who's discussing the case (beside me) online and what's being said.

Brett Vanasdlen, an 18-year-old freshman at Parkland College in Champaign, Illinois, was arrested on April 12, 2008, in Champaign, after he allegedly yelled anti-gay slurs at Steven Velasquez, 20, who was walking near his college campus with three friends, and then allegedly pushed Velasquez so forcefully that when he hit the ground he was knocked unconscious and suffered from a head injury. Born in podunk Minooka, Illinois, Vanasdlen, a talented baseball player, had played baseball at Purdue University very briefly in his first and only semester at the West Lafayette, Indiana university, before transferring (for reasons unknown to me) to Parkland College. His choosing to attend Parkland was very likely based on the successful baseball program the Division II school has: the Parkland Cobras won the National Junior College Athletic Association's World Series in 2002, finished fourth in 2003, and finished second in 2005, according to the school's baseball webpage. By my calculations, during the five weeks and 27 games he played for the Cobras (from February 29, 2008 until on or around April 8, 2008) Vanasdlen had the fifth best batting average (.342) of the 13 Parkland players who batted in at least ten games (the team had an average of hitting .334). He was the second leading player on his team in terms of RBIs and he was tied for 19th in all of Division II college baseball by April 12th.

Jodi Littleton, the Executive Director of Community Relations at Parkland College, and the only school administrator who would talk to me, told me on April 21st that she did not know whether Parkland has, as some schools do, a policy or procedure for possibly expelling students accused of a violent crime. Ms. Littleton told me that Vanasdlen was kicked off the baseball team, but her words suggested he was still enrolled in school. I realize that for student privacy reasons college administrators cannot talk about a particular student to the press or even to a blogger like myself. What's astonishing about the school's response to my question about its policies are these facts.

Ms. Littleton told me on April 21st that Linda Moore, Parkland's Vice President of Student Services, and/or Damien McDonald, Executive Director of Community Relations, would know if Parkland College has a policy or procedure for possibly expelling students accused of a violent offense. Ms. Littleton said she would email Moore and McDonald about my question; she took my telephone number so that either administrator could speak with me. Marsha Kaster, Moore's administrative assistant, confirmed to me later in the afternoon on April 21st that Ms. Littleton had emailed both Moore and McDonald of my request to speak with them. After placing me on hold briefly--to see if Damien McDonald was available to speak with me--Kaster returned to state somewhat tersely that he was not available and that, "They'll contact you at their earliest convenience." I had the distinct impression from the new tone in her voice that I would not hear from either Moore or McDonald. I haven't. Now I'm left to speculate whether or not Parkland College has bothered to follow its own student safety policy:

"It is the policy of Parkland College to keep its faculty, staff and students informed of all matters concerning safety and security. The Department of Public Safety has developed a plan to notify the campus population...The level of notification depends upon the type and severity of the incident."

I could find no evidence that Parkland notified its student body that one of its freshman was arrested for allegedly causing head trauma to a gay college student at a neighboring university in an alleged hate crime gay bashing, and that the freshman has not been administratively expelled from school, even temporarily, pending some type of school investigation. A gay student at Parkland might want that information, even if they aren't told the assailant's identity. Perhaps the administrators at Parkland College could care less about the safety of its gay students. Perhaps they care more about the reputation of its successful baseball team. (If it's any consolation to the student body at Parkland College, the school has a policy regarding sexual assault that can include a disciplinary hearing.)

I also made attempts to speak with the Champaign County State's Attorney's Office about the allegation against Brett Vanasdlen, because the one and only television news account of the incident offered no details about whether or not Vanasdlen was with anyone (as Steven Velasquez was) at the time of the incident, whether he was arrested immediately following the incident, and where exactly he was arrested. What I learned when I spoke to the woman who answered the telephone at the State's Attorney's Office on April 21st is that the case had not been assigned a prosecutor. The woman stated, "It’s being looked at but it has not been assigned." She said that it was being examined by two attorneys (presumably those responsible for assigning cases to D.A.s), but the unidentified woman I spoke with at the State’s Attorney’s Office would not give me either of their names when I asked. She did state, however, that May 6, 2008 in Courtroom S (#315) would be the date and location of the next hearing on the matter. So, more than a week following the alleged hate crime assault the state has not bothered to assign the case. One is left to wonder how much the deck might be stacked against the victim seeking justice in this case. After all, Brett Vanasdlen, the State's Attorney's Office had told me, had already done what any savvy person in his shoes would do. He retained an attorney. Specifically, attorney Carol A. Dison at Becket & Webber out of Tuscola, Illinois was retained as defense counsel. With a little digging, I learned that that law firm has a partner with the same last name as Parkland College's Vice President of Student Services, so I also intended to ask Linda Moore if Parkland College had retained Ms. Dison for their baseball star or directed him to Becket & Webber, but as I've said, no one at Parkland has returned my calls.

Little has been reported by the media about the alleged attack on Steven Velasquez, but that has not stopped people from commenting online about the incident. What's surprising to me is not only the content of the comments, but also where some of them have been posted. Other than my own blogging on the subject, two other websites that reported the initial media report of the alleged hate crime against Steven Velasquez allowed readers to comment on the incident and how it was covered. One is a Seattle-based gay-oriented blogsite run by a guy named Tom. The other was the CBS affiliate in Champaign, Illinois that initially broke the story. This is where, I think, things get interesting; it's where the sociopolitical climate of our country gets illuminated. The Seattle blogsite had a whopping ten postings to the Champaign, Illinois incident, as of May 2, 2008, which is unusual because of the location of the blogsite relative to where the incident is said to have occurred and because the alleged attack was not a fatal one or one widely publicized. (As I said in my previous diary I was the author of one of those postings). Yet the Champaign, Illinois website had just three postings, and this too is surprising because, as mentioned, the attack took place right there in Champaign.

OK, let's have a look at what people have said about the alleged hate crime and where they said it. At the Seattle-based gay blogsite, excluding my posting and the two postings by Tom the blogsite owner, four of the seven postings were in support of the alleged assailant! One person claimed to know the assailant and to know he is not guilty, another claimed to know the victim and to know he lied about the incident, and a third claimed to know that one of the three Champaign, Illinois police officers involved in the incident just wants to make life miserable for the accused, Brett Vanasdlen. In my first blog, I wondered whether Brett Vanasdlen himself wasn’t the author of one of the first postings at Tom’s blogsite—that drunken-sounding posting on Friday April 18th just six days after his arrest declares Vanasdlen’s innocence:

"all this is bullshit brett didnt do shit its jsut some pussy looking for a way out"

I specifically wondered how, if he was the posting's author, Brett Vanasdlen could be so careless as to not even bother to at least pose as a gay man when attempting to deny the accusations against him at a gay-themed blogsite. Then, as if magic, a second posting at Tom’s blogsite in support of Brett Vanasdlen sprang up on April 20th, and this person wanted it known—as if to add credibility to his claim—that he was (you guessed it) gay. What next, a posting from someone who could provide damning information about the Champaign, Illinois police officers responsible for Vanasdlen’s arrest? Yep. This April 23rd posting on Tom’s blogsite reads in part:

"From my understanding, there were 3 cops on the scene, and 2 did not want to even write the incident up, while the third was very intent on making life miserable for Van Asdlen, and won out."

These are pretty amazing postings at a gay blogsite. Whether or not someone was trying to do damage control for the accused at the blogsite, Tom, the blogsite's owner who moderates all submitted posts, certainly can't be accused of censorship. What is also clear is the poor-him-sounding theme of these postings: Brett Vanasdlen, although charged with a fourth-degree felony crime, we’re supposed to believe, is really the victim in the assault on Steven Velasquez, not Mr. Velasquez. We’re told to believe that the victim had it out for Vanasdlen (why we don’t know) and that a police officer had it out for Vanasdlen (why we don’t know). What the person or people who posted at Tom's blogsite fail to see is that complaining about the calls that umpires make in the game of life does not change those calls.

Similar to the postings at Tom's gay-themed blogsite, the comments left at the CBS affiliate that broke the story didn't seem to show much support for the man who suffered a concussion in the attack. One commenter sang praises for the assailant stating:

"I would like to stick up for Brett VanAsdlen. I know him. He's a very nice young man."

That commenter went on to say that the CBS news story that included a brief comment by the victim and one of the eyewitnesses shouldn't have been aired. A second commenter basically agreed, adding that he is not "a fan" of hate crime laws, and suggesting the news station had some sort of bias in reporting this particular crime allegation. Then there was the third and final commenter from yet another Brett Vanasdlen fan. This commenter said:

"I would also like to stand up for Brett V. I too know him. He has been like an older brother to me sinse i was little...Brett is a good guy. I do not believe this was a hate crime at all. I believe that the fact that the victim was gay should have nothing to do with it. Maybe the media should have heard what happened from Brett VanAsdlen first before they put that clip on t.v. Now I'm not saying that Brett didn't do anything because I wasn't there and i don't know what happened but i do believe that he should be given a chance."

To be clear the Champaign, Illinois CBS affiliate did not state or imply that Vanasdlen was guilty in their report of the incident; they merely said he was accused of attacking a gay University of Illinois student that allegedly included anti-gay slurs and that resulted in the victim needing to be hospitalized for head trauma. Apparently seeing the victim describe his version of what happened to him--seeing a gay man stand up for himself, seeing a gay man give voice to his ordeal and listening to a story of a gay man who vowed to seek justice following an alleged unprovoked assault on him--hit a raw nerve with middle America.

Judging from the comments from the locals, Brett Vanasdlen ought to plead not guilty and demand a jury trial. He's certain to get an acquittal. Some people just refuse to believe that some crimes could be based on the assailant's prejudice and hatred of persons from a specific group. To think that this could be a possibility a case involving a male, presumably heterosexual college athlete is apparently an affront to many. Like baseball, gay bashing seems an all-American sport never to be sullied. To dare to report just an allegation of a gay bashing hate crime, especially one that involves the arrest of a college baseball player, as two news sources did in the Brett Vanasdlen case, has brought much ire. It's as if the press attacked mom on the Fourth of July with an apple pie and then burned Old Glory.

Brett Vanasdlen, the alleged hate crime perpetrator in the Champaign, Illinois case, has received some supportive words from rightwing hate-mongers. Typical of one of his histrionic rants, anti-gay, anti-Semitic, über-Christian, and anti-hate crime activist, Reverend Ted Pike, published a blog in support of Brett Vanasdlen whereby he claims to know that the victim was the one who actually put his hands on Brett Vanasdlen, and not the other way around as the police allege (the good man of the cloth comes to this conclusion not by speaking to one of the eyewitnesses at the scene of the alleged gay bashing, but by speaking with someone not present when the incident occurred...Brett Vanasdlen's mother!). Reverend Ted Pike broke one of God's commandments and lied when he wrote:

"The homosexual and public media in the Champaign area are now in hue and cry to convict Brett. Homosexual groups are publishing articles against him in their media and on the internet. (See, http://illinoishomepage.net/content/fulltext/?cid=12590) They have posted his address on the internet. Homosexuals are now picketing on the street where this alleged hate crime occurred."

As I've shown, quite the opposite has occurred. The media barely touched the story, only one gay blogsite mentioned the story, and the support for the alleged perpetrator has been shockingly loud (I say shockingly because not one eyewitness has reported something contrary to what the police have alleged). Incidentally, I could find no published address of Vanasdlen, and I could find nothing about a single person picketing, as Rev. Pike claimed (although the University of Illinois' GLBT student group held a rally opposing hate crimes and supporting tolerance in response to their fellow student, Steven Velasquez, being assaulted). But this is what we can expect from someone who is adored by none other than ex-Klansman, David Duke, who, unsurprisingly is as vehemently opposed to hate crime legislation as Rev. Ted Pike. (For anyone reading this who is opposed to hate crime laws, just so you know, these are the dogs you are laying with: dyed-in-the-wool bigots, neo-fascists, and members of known hate groups).

Speaking of those with résumés that include membership in known hate groups, I found another posting about baseball slugger and accused gay-man-slugging Brett Vanasdlen. This one came from the Vanguard Network News forum, which is a virulently anti-Semitic, white supremacist hate site. As of May 3, 2008, twelve white supremacists commented on Rev. Ted Pike's call-to-arms in support of "Christian" Brett Vanasdlen. The responses from the white supremacists were less homophobic (and more anti-Christian) than I would have guessed, but unsurprisingly none of the white supremacists came out in favor of hate crime laws or supporting the gay victim in the case (and, yeah, some were sickeningly homophobic, but mostly the comments were a slurry of anti-Jewish invective).

From my examination of hundreds of reported hate crimes in the United States, more often than not the alleged assailant avoids trial and pleads guilty to a lesser (non-hate crime) charge; or, the hate crime charges are dropped prior to trial. Also, from my examination of recent cases of college students arrested for allegedly committing a hate crime rarely does the District Attorney vigorously prosecute the case, and never do such students receive any time in jail. Judges just won't have that (call it college student privilege or call it preserving the status quo).

Vanasdlen is not the first college jock to be charged with a hate crime, and he'll probably have the same fate as those before him. It is my prediction in the case of Brett Vanasdlen that at most he will receive probation for a charge other than a hate crime (I'll guess something equivalent to disorderly conduct or simple assault). Unless the victim in the case, Steven Velasquez, is tenacious (and he may very well be, he has eyewitnesses and it sounds like he has some really supportive friends and a supportive college community), Vanasdlen has a 50-50 chance of having the charge against him dropped. Regardless, I predict he'll be back on the Parkland College baseball team next year.