They Burn Horses, Don't They?

Morgan County, Ohio farmer Brent Whitehouse is quoted as saying the following about one of his pregnant quarterhorses and the tragedy that followed:

"I knew the way she was acting Saturday and Sunday that she was ready [to give birth]. My one dog was acting funny, and I looked out the window and saw this orange glow coming from the barn. I ran out there, but the doors of the barn wouldn't open and suddenly, flames were shooting up through the roof. That barn was gone in five minutes."

All eight of his horses—Elvis, Barney, Floyd, Ethel, Love, Bella, Princess, and a one-week old guy named Buddy who was Princess' new foal—perished in the blaze that began around 11:30PM EST on April 24, 2011, a blaze that was so hot a tractor inside the barn melted; but, this was no brushfire gone astray. The state's Fire Marshal classified it as an arson, and a reward is being offered for information leading to the perpetrator(s). It should also be classified as a hate crime, and the Morgan County Sheriff's Department is weighing that possibility as they investigate. Spray-painted on the charred remains of Mr. Whitehouse's barn in McConnelsville were homophobic remarks according to various news sources. From what I can tell by examining a photograph of the barn taken by Chris Crook of the Times Recorder it appears the perpetrator(s) wrote something like "Burn in Hell" and the beginning of a word that begins with the letter "F." Another published photograph of the side of the barn showed this anti-gay phrase: "FAGS ARE FREAKS."

Said Mr. Whitehouse, "Whoever did this had to walk right by all those horses, including the baby, and didn't care that they were killing a gentle, loving animal." That's the take-away message about hate crime perpetrators—whether they prey on someone because of their race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation—they don't care about anyone's life but their own. Arrogant and callous, hate crime perps don't even care about the lives of animals, just their twisted worldview where they are first-class citizens.

It's doubtful that few, if any, arsons that lead to the deaths of horses are classified as hate crimes. However, when arson investigators find themselves at a loss for why such fires are started, perhaps—given the tragedy that Mr. Whitehouse is enduring— fire investigators should consider the sociodemographics of the human victim and the possibility that such arsons are hate crimes. Whoever killed Mr. Whitehouse's horses, one thing is certain, and that is the motive: the perpetrator had animus for the horse-breeder's perceived sexual orientation. Had the barn's walls been completely destroyed and the spray-painted homophobic messages gone unread, we may never have known the motive behind such a cruel and life-destroying act.

This was previously published at DailyKos.