Our 2008 Maintaining Hated Award "Winners"

This year will be the first year that we at trendsinhate.com shine the spotlight on specific individuals and groups of individuals for their work (or lack thereof) in shamefully ignoring criminal justice with respect to hate crimes. These people showed their disregard for the spirit and purpose of hate crime laws in 2008, and in doing so, they degraded not only the positions of public trust that they hold, but also the basic dignity of those who suffered, directly and indirectly, from criminal, hateful behavior that they, as public servants, explicitly reinforced through their actions (or inaction). A selected person or group of people from each of three categories, here are the 2008 Trends In Hate Maintaining Hatred Award "Winners".

Most Hateful Law Enforcement Official in 2008: Demonstrating that African-Americans can turn a blind's eye to race-based criminal activity—even when the perpetrators of that racism target other African-Americans—the winner of the Most Hateful Law Enforcement Official in 2008 goes to Northport, Alabama Police Chief, Robert W. Green. As we detailed in our July 20, 2008, blog "Gaslighting Northport, Alabama" Chief Green showed his audacity by denying that hate crime charges could be filed by his department. He did so by lying to the public asserting that only the federal government could pursue hate crime charges against the two unnamed teenaged individuals arrested for having allegedly tagged a largely African-American and Latino mobile home park with racist graffiti (including the letters "KKK") and shooting a gun repeatedly into the SUV belonging to a black resident of that mobile home park. While it's true that interfering with someone's housing rights based on race is against the federal civil rights statute, Alabama has a hate crime law too, and that law should have been used to charge the teenagers with a hate crime. For their part, the FBI did nothing either; no civil rights charges were filed against the teens. Also, the mayor of Northport has voiced no opposition—let alone moral outrage—to his police chief's Uncle Tom decision. We'll go out on a limb here and speculate that the two arrested teenagers are white, that their parents have some position of standing in Northport, and that, at most, the teens will receive a slap on the wrist for having placed a community in fear. Of course, the public will never know, because since the two arrested were charged as juveniles and not as adults, their court proceedings will not be open to the public. And so, with Chief Robert Green's pathetic decision to not act on the obvious, and with Chief Robert Green's public abdication of his responsibility to the public, Northport, Alabama holds on to the South's racist past...albeit with a twist of irony.

Most Hateful Prosecutor in 2008: This award goes to not one District Attorney but to the entire Dallas County District Attorney’s Office for their refusal to prosecute an obvious hate crime as one. In the early morning hours of July 18, 2008, a white bisexual man, Jimmy Lee Dean, 42, was severely beaten and robbed in the Oak Lawn section of Dallas while walking home from a gay bar in what police tallied as a sexual orientation-based hate crime. An African-American eyewitness, Michael Robinson, 48, who lives in the area of the assault and who was with Mr. Dean at the time of the attack, said two white men shouted anti-gay slurs prior to and during the brutal attack that allegedly involved Mr. Dean’s head being stomped on and him being pistol-whipped near the corner of Throckmorton Street and Dickerson Avenue. The two alleged perpetrators are also said to have stolen a set of keys and a lighter from their victim. The Cincinnati, Ohio native and 20-year resident of Dallas was admitted to the Parkland Hospital in Dallas with life-threatening injuries. He suffered a broken jaw, broken vertebrae, broken facial bones, and significant facial swelling. Witnesses at the scene said Mr. Dean’s nose was attached only by a piece of skin. That is the kind of "overkill", or gratuitous violence, not uncommon in hate crime attacks. Mr. Dean's injuries were so severe that police were unable to interview him for days after the attack. Thankfully, he recovered.

Thanks to smart-acting eyewitnesses, including Mr. Robinson and former security officer and Police Explorer Norman Draper, 26—who, acting as the designated driver for some of his friends, spotted Mr. Dean when driving past the scene of the crime—911 was called quickly; and, the 9mm Glock handgun and the knife used in the crime were recovered. Arrested and charged with first-degree aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon were Bobby Jack Singleton, 29, of Garland, Texas, and Jonathan Russell Gunter, 31, also of Garland. Despite the police's designation that the attack on Mr. Dean constituted a hate crime, the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office refused to press hate crime charges, stating that Singleton and Gunter would face the maximum sentence (up to a 99-year prison term each) if convicted as charged, thus arguing that hate crime charges are unnecessary.

Although it might think it is, the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office is not making decisions in a cultural vacuum. Far from it. Dallas County, Texas—as we showed in our "Hot Spots of Hate" report—is a city with numerous, well-documented hate crimes, including those against gay people. For example, from 1995-2006, Dallas County, Texas had more reported hate crimes—and more reported sexual orientation-based hate crimes—than the counties where Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and nearby Fort Worth are located. In short, Dallas loves to hate its gays. On August 7, 2008, Dallas Voice reporter John Wright wrote: "The Dallas Police Department has classified the [Jimmy Lee Dean] case as an anti-gay hate crime for statistical reporting purposes, but [Kevin] Brooks [felony trial bureau chief for the Dallas Texas District Attorney's Office] said prosecutors have nothing to gain by filing hate crimes enhancements." We think Mr. Wright hit the nail on the head: prosecutors have nothing to gain. In a place like Dallas, Texas, prosecuting a gay-based hate crime could spell disaster for a prosecutor's political aspirations. The decision by the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office in the attack on Jimmy Lee Dean seems less about seeking a lengthy prison sentence for those accused than about avoiding being seen as tolerant of a marginalized minority group. Their decision seems to be about pandering to the larger, conservative—and homophobic—community. Instead of applying the Texas hate crime statute in the Jimmy Lee Dean case, the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office did the lawyerly thing of deflecting away from that fact by talking up how much time they hope the defendants get if convicted.

We disagree too with the stance of a Texas gay-rights group, Equality Texas, which agrees with the D.A.'s decision to not prosecute the Jimmy Lee Dean case as a hate crime. Equality Texas seems to have swallowed the talking points dished out by the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office hook, line and sinker. On August 7, 2008, the Dallas Voice quoted Randall Terrell, the legislative director of Equality Texas as stating: “We certainly can’t disagree with the prosecution that there’s no reason to charge it as a hate crime, because you don’t get any more mileage out of it. The last thing you want to do is endanger a prosecution on something like this.” No reason to charge it as a hate crime? What about the testimony of Mr. Robinson who told police of the anti-gay slurs hurled at the victim? That is reason enough to add a hate crime enhancer to the charge of each defendant. Endanger a prosecution? Here’s the reality: prosecutors run the risk of having a convicted criminal get less punishment if they cannot prove the hate component in a hate crime case, but nonetheless secure a conviction. In the case of Mr. Dean the "hate" evidence seems overwhelming; no witness has come forward to refute what Mr. Robinson told police. Thus, the risk of losing the hate crime component seems to be a small one. In the case of Mr. Dean, less punishment for the two men arrested could be up to 99 years in prison each, if they are convicted of aggravated robbery—that is, if the D.A.’s office “loses” and the defendants are not convicted of a hate crime. That is not a bad consolation prize for the D.A.’s office. Or for public safety.

Other critical points missed by Equality Texas are these. First, by not prosecuting hate crimes the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office is wrongly communicating to the public that hate crime laws are unimportant, and that hate crimes are not more community-damaging than non-hate crimes. In fact, by not pursuing the Jimmy Lee Dean case as a hate crime, another message is given: the eyewitness testimony of a black gay man (Mr. Robinson) in a hate crime case is suspect. That is a racist and homophobic message we hope Equality Texas doesn’t mean to send. Either way, it looks to us as though the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office has played Equality Texas like a fiddle by getting the gay-rights group to parrot their anti-hate crime talking points. Finally, by not prosecuting hate crimes the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office is clearly communicating to the public that those who prey on vulnerable groups of citizens will remain shielded from a law meant to protect the vulnerable. Perhaps that is one reason sexual-orientation and other types of hate crimes are so common in Dallas, Texas.

Through their soft-on-hate-crime stance, who knows how many Dallas-based homophobes the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office has emboldened. They set a low standard for all prosecutors in the Lone Star state by raising the bar high for what constitutes a hate crime in Dallas County, Texas. Jimmy Lee Dean, as quoted by the Dallas Voice, remarked on the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office decision to not add hate crime enhancers to the charges against the two men arrested for allegedly robbing him and nearly beating him to death: “It kind of bugs me.” Mr. Dean, it bugs us too.

Most Hateful Judge in 2008: The first jurist to be named our Most Hateful Judge goes to Suzanne N. Kingsbury. The El Dorado County California judge presided over the Silva hate crime case in 2008. On July 14, in 2007 in Lake Tahoe, California, Joseph Silva, and his wife, Georgia Silva, 49, then of South Lake Tahoe, are alleged to have beaten an Indian American man, Vishal Wadhwa, 38, and to have hurled racial slurs at him, and at his fiancée and her cousin. The Silvas stood accused of knocking Mr. Wadhwa to the ground and while Georgia is said to have sat on the victim, her husband, Joseph, allegedly kicked Mr. Wadhwa in the face repeatedly fracturing several bones in his face at a beach in Lake Tahoe. Out of the El Dorado County Superior Court in Placerville, California, Joseph was charged with felony assault with a hate crime enhancement and Georgia was charged with misdemeanor assault with a hate crime enhancement. The married couple are said to have called the three Indian American victims “terrorists”, “relatives of Osama bin Laden”, and other ethnicity-based slurs at the time of the alleged assault, including “Indian sluts and whores,” and “Indian garbage”. But, the San Francisco banker and his family would not find the justice they had hoped for, thanks to Judge Suzanne N. Kingsbury. On June 26, 2008, the El Dorado County Superior Court judge dropped the hate crime enhancement charges against the Silvas ruling that the evidence did not fit the legal definition of a hate crime. This is, of course, a bizarre interpretation of California's hate crime law, particularly since the defendants are said to have targeted their victims because of their ethnicity. To support the white defendants even further, judge Kingsbury—presiding in a politically conservative county with a white population of 87.5% according to 2007 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau—also dropped the felony assault charge against Joseph Silva.

Rightfully so, many were outraged by judge Kingsbury's outrageous rulings. On August 6, 2008, the Asian Law Caucus called Judge Kingsbury’s rulings travesties of justice, and we believe that the South Asian Bar Association’s Civil Rights Committee chair, Harmeet K. Dhillon, asked an appropriate question about the case: “If this is not a hate crime, then what is a hate crime? If you shout racial epithets and if you break someone’s face based on their ethnicity, it is a hate crime.” Disturbingly, from June, 2004 through June, 2006, judge Kingsbury had served on the Judicial Council of California, which, according to their website, is responsible for ensuring the "consistent, independent, impartial, and accessible administration of justice". Judge Kingsbury bent over backwards for the convicted couple one final time: on September 24, 2008, she sentenced Georgia Silva to one year in jail and Joseph Silva to six months in jail and three years probation; however, Judge Kingsbury ordered that the two will not have to serve their jail sentences at the same time so that one of them will be able to care for their son. The Silvas—who now live in Solano County—have never apologized to Mr. Wadhwa. Given that Joseph Silva no longer resides in El Dorado County, we're guessing his probation out of Judge Kingsbury's court will lack the oversight it deserves.

For the title of Most Hateful Judge in 2008, Suzanne N. Kingsbury barely beat out our runner-up, Orange County California District Judge Thomas Goethals, who on October 28, 2008, dismissed the hate crime (and other felony) charges against three white men who beat an undocumented Latino janitor on his way to work. All three men were drunk from a night of partying on September 9, 2007, first at a Los Angeles Angels baseball game (the Angels lost to the Cleveland Indians 6-2) and then later at Larry Flynt's Hustler Club in Westminster, California. Justin Louis Mullins 23, of Garden Grove, Cheyne Danica Wilson, 25, of Hesperia, and James Joseph Kelly, 26, of California City were arrested and each were charged with one felony count of aggravated assault; Mullins' and Kelly's charges were attached with a sentencing hate crime enhancement. Cheyne Wilson, an officer in the U.S. Army Reserves and a former member of the U.S. Army who served in the Iraq War, was charged with felony aggravated assault and also with one misdemeanor count of carrying a loaded firearm in public. Mullins and Kelly began shouting racial slurs at their victim, Mr. Felipe Alvarado, when their vehicle pulled alongside his at a stoplight on September 9, 2007. The Latino man ignored the men who followed their victim to his place of employment in Garden Grove, and while continuing to shout racial slurs at him, they pulled him out of his car and beat and kicked him. Wilson came along in a second car and joined in. Over a year later on October 28, 2008, Judge Goethals, over the verbal and written protestations of the Orange County California District Attorney's Office, reduced all of the felony charges against the three men to misdemeanors. The three white men then pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charges. Wilson, who continues to train military personnel regularly, also pleaded guilty to the firearms charge.

Probably in part due to protests about the actions of judge Goethals from many in the Latino community and from the D.A.'s office, on December 19, 2008, the judge sentenced Mullins, 24, to four years and four months in prison for violating probation on two prior felony domestic violence and drunken driving charges by incurring charges in the Alvarado assault case. Mullins was also sentenced to one year in county jail for the attack against Mr. Alvarado who, because of the crime against him, has since moved from California and who continues to be fearful to be outside after dark. Kelly, 27, also a former member of the U.S. Army and someone who served in the Iraq War, was sentenced to nine months in county jail and three years of probation for the crime. Wilson, 26, was sentenced to three months in county jail and three years of probation. On the date of sentencing judge Goethals justified his earlier rulings in the case. The judge also ordered the three criminals to pay about $25,000 in restitution to Mr. Alvarado for medical expenses, which begs this question: if the crimes committed by Mullins, Kelly, and Wilson constituted only misdemeanor assault, how could the victim's medical bills be so high (the D.A.'s office has maintained that felony assault occurred).

The Orange County Register reported on December 19, 2008, that judge Goethals was "shocked" by the crime against Mr. Alvarado; yet, if judge Goethals truly thought that the behavior of the three white men constituted just misdemeanor criminal behavior, we wonder how "shocked" he really was. After all, as a college student quoted in the Register's article noted, jaywalking is a misdemeanor. Another Register reader asked what rock judge Goethals has been living under to rule that a hate crime against Mr. Alvarado did not occur.

Fighting Anti-Semitism Proves Too Costly

For those feeling a little more patriotic—a little more proud to be American—having cast your vote in last month's national election, please, don't read this. Cooper City, Florida, a town in Broward County of about 31,000 folks, whose motto is "Someplace Special", has had some ugliness—ugliness in the form of anti-Semitism—directed at its mayor and her staff this year. Hopefully, the folks at Family Circle magazine will catch wind of this story and re-assess whether Cooper City really is worthy of its Top 10 Best Towns for Families, unless of course the author of that list, Michael J. Weiss, wishes to specify that the list is for non-Jewish families. Oh, it's not that the good people of Cooper City haven't tried to beat down the hateful beast of anti-Semitism, they have. The problem, they've concluded, is that fighting their local anti-Semitism is simply too financially draining.

On January 19, 2008, the campaign manager for the town's Jewish mayor, Debby Eisinger, had a swastika scratched onto her vehicle. Eisinger’s campaign manager, Lori Green, who is also Jewish, said her car was parked beside her house in Embassy Lakes when the anti-Semitic act occurred. Green, whose husband's relatives are Holocaust survivors, reported the swastika to law enforcement when Lori discovered it, and the Broward County Sheriff's Office has since labeled the incident a hate crime.

That same month the Broward County Sheriff's Office started looking for evidence leading to those responsible for anti-Semitic postings about mayor Eisinger on the now-defunct website www.savecoopercity.blogspot.com, a hate blogsite that was registered to Cooper City Commissioner John Sims. The Sheriff's office considers those postings to also constitute a hate crime. In addition to local law enforcement, the townspeople also took action on the matter. According to South Florida Sun-Sentinel reporter, Elizabeth Baier, more than 1,900 Cooper City residents (10 percent of the city's registered voters) signed a petition for a special recall vote of Commissioner Sims, who has claimed no responsibility for the anti-Semitic postings at his (now dead) registered blogsite. However, as Ms. Baier reported in May, 2008 City Clerk Susan Bernard said the recall vote to remove Sims would require two special elections with a total price tag of $110,000. That amount proved too much to press for the recall vote. Ms. Baier quotes former Cooper City Commissioner, Elliot Kleiman, the man who spear-headed the recall committee and worked his butt off to collect the 1,900-plus signatures to move the recall vote forward, as saying, "Based on the economy and all the problems with city budgets, we just determined that it just wasn't worth it." This statement was made months before the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, the Wall Street bailout, and the plummeting stockmarkets; so, if Cooper City didn't have enough cash back in May for a recall vote, they certainly don't have it now.

Well, at least there is an active criminal investigation into the hate crime blog postings, right? Uh, no. According to Ms. Baier's article, the Broward County Sheriff's Office "have suspended the investigation until they get more information." The thing about police investigations is this: you don't get more information about a crime when you suspend the criminal investigation. Perhaps keeping the investigation active was also proving too costly.

For his part, Commissioner John Sims has been quoted as saying the recall petition effort "was a big joke," and he's started another blogsite where, speaking of himself in the third-person, he says, "John has the hands on experience to effectively address and resolve the current moral, legal and political issues facing Cooper City, and to make Cooper City more than 'Someplace Special' to live for our present residents and our future generations." Anti-Semitism, we hope Mr. Sims will agree, is no laughing matter for this generation or the next ones.

Bashing Anti-gay Bashing Legislation

It's amazing to us how a few oppressed minority group members oppress others; über-amazing is when their words and actions work to oppress members of their own oppressed group. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), for example, did a second story in the summer of 2007 of an African-American man, H. K. Edgerton of Asheville, North Carolina, who had been working to preserve antebellum era memories and to bring back codified racism through his (thankfully now defunct) neo-Confederate group, Southern Heritage 411. For those not in the know about neo-Confederacy, it is a hate ideology with—not surprisingly—white supremacist and neo-Nazi ties. In an interview with the SPLC's Intelligence Report eight years ago, Edgerton said, "it was better to be an African in the Southland as a slave than to be free in Africa." According to Edgerton, a life of whippings, rape and dehumanizing servitude would be a preferred life—for him and other blacks—to one of autonomy, safety and respect. However you try to understand his mental gymnastics, the strange truth is that Edgerton is a black man in favor of black slavery.

Edgerton comes to mind when reading the latest from Ann Rostow, an Austin, Texas resident and lesbian columnist/writer for the San Francisco Bay Times, that city's gay, lesbian and transgendered newspaper. No, Rostow's not a black woman trying to bring back slavery, although her town has not one but two chapters of a known neo-Confederate hate group. Instead, in her November 20, 2008, Bay Times article, Rostow—sounding like a lesbian H.K. Edgerton—denigrates the efforts of those in her own community (and, by extension, those in the larger community) who are working to broaden the existing federal hate crime statute to include sexual orientation, gender, and gender identity as protected categories. Either callously unconcerned or oblivious to the fact that some in her community—gay men—are at a high relative risk of being victims of hate crimes, Rostow asserts that the gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered communities "cannot afford" to spend resources on strengthening the national hate crime law. Why not? Rostow offers up a platter of bizarre reasons.

First, reciting the tired, illogical line from other hate crime law opponents, Rostow writes:

"Hate crimes are despicable. But legislation won’t end them. Hate crime penalties are rarely enforced or charged where applicable."

Let's digest those first five words: "hate crimes are despicable, but...". You know what's coming when you hear a white person say, "I'm not racist, but..." or a non-Jew begin a sentence with, "I'm not anti-Semitic, but...". With that leadoff giveaway, it's no surprise Rostow continues on with the faulty logic that because hate crime legislation won't end hate crimes from occurring, then pushing to include sexual orientation as a protected category in proposed federal hate crime legislation is a waste of time and money. Using this same logic, we shouldn't have any laws including those banning murder, rape, robbery, or embezzlement, because the laws that we have now certainly have not stopped those crimes from being committed. Hers is a lame, baseless rationale for allowing people to be victimized because of their sexuality and one we've heard and commented on before.

While not the case in some areas of the United States, in Rostow's state of Texas it is true, as she points out, that hate crimes have been very rarely prosecuted as such, even obvious ones. However, that does not mean beefing up federal hate crime legislation should be ignored by anyone. Lack of appropriate prosecution and lack of appropriate punishment for hate crime offenders means that continued civil rights work—in the forms of activism and education—needs to happen so that hate crimes are seen as the society-destroying acts that they are by all areas of law enforcement. As we've shown, there is a trend in the right direction for voluntarily documenting and reporting hate crime incidents among the nation's law enforcement agencies. This has come about in no small part by citizens demanding that the police take these steps. What needs to happen now is for people to put pressure on District Attorneys and judges so that progress made by police will similarly occur in these other areas of law enforcement.

Strangely, Rostow asserts this reason for having the GLBT communities abandon efforts to push for a hate crime bill that will protect them: "A hate crime law will be the easiest, and one of the least useful, pieces of federal legislation that" the GLBT communities can advocate for. While it is likely true that once her former-governor vacates the White House in less than two months, a veto of an expanded hate crime amendment—should one make its way to President Obama's desk—will likely not occur. Still, Rostow forgets that the two co-sponsors of last year's failed hate crime bill—Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy and Oregon Senator Gordon H. Smith—are in no position to fight for the cause in 2009. Senator Kennedy has been struck with a terminal, cancerous brain tumor, and Senator Smith failed to win re-election last month. It remains to be seen who, if anyone, in Congress will draft an expanded version of the federal hate crime law (and if an updated amendment is to be written during Obama's presidency, we hope that it will include homelessness status as well as sexual orientation, gender and gender-identity). But, even if Rostow is correct—that fighting for passage of a new hate crime amendment would be easy—that is no reason to not fight for it. After all, in early 2008 in California polls showed that Proposition 8 would fail. The response from some in the gay community after those early polls were made public was lack-luster; homophobic forces then mobilized, and Prop 8 narrowly passed. Instead of being useless, we believe that passage of a federal hate crime law that includes sexual orientation would deliver an important message to homophobic America.

Instead of calling on more members from her community to fight for passage of a GLBT-protecting hate crime law, one that should have been passed long ago, Rostow states:

"You know what? A federal hate crime law is not our top priority as a community. And I am not appointing myself Director of the Gay Agenda, I am stating a fact."

Her own irony is lost on her here as Rostow, indeed, anoints herself as the Director of the Gay Agenda; and, she is stating opinion, not fact. Worse, though, is that she forgets a most important lesson in life: safety first. So, in Rostow's mind, what is more important than protecting the safety of every GLBT individual throughout the United States and transforming America by making it perfectly clear in the code of federal law that trolling for a gay victim is very, very wrong? Why that would be legalizing same-sex marriage in just one state (by working to repeal Proposition 8 in California) and working toward the repeal of the military's current closet mandate for homosexual service men and women.

We get it: Rostow's just being an American woman from Texas. Being American means ignoring evil (visit any Christian church in Europe and you'll no doubt see depictions of Satan, but you'd be hard pressed to find many churches in the United States that devote any stained glass to the devil). We Americans don't like looking at evil and hate crimes are acts of evil. Period. It's preferable to thumb through Modern Bride and fantisize about your same-sex wedding than it is to think that if you and your newly wedded spouse chose to visit Shenandoah National Park for a honeymoon stop you could wind up with your throats slit as happened to two lesbians—Julianne Marie Williams and Laura Winans—in 1996. In Rostow's America you could be legally wed to your same-sex partner and have your house burned down with anti-gay slurs scrawled on the home's only brick wall with no chance for added punishment for the perpetrator as happened recently to a young gay man in North Carolina. In Rostow's America as a homosexual you could openly serve in fighting America's immoral war in Iraq—one that began when we invaded a sovereign nation preemptively under false pretenses—and come home to be killed by some of your fellow soldiers or by an Evangelical Christian from another country simply because you are gay or lesbian, again with no added punishment for the perpetrator. During the Vietnam War era, America's youth protested that if they were too young to vote or drink, then they ought to be too young to be conscripted into the military (voting and drinking ages were lowered as a result). We think that today most gay and lesbian people would rightfully want homophobic violence specifically penalized before other, important civil rights are granted. You know, safety first.

We want to be clear here: Rostow paints an either-or agenda for the gay communities. It's either fighting for the repeal of the military's Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell policy and of California's Proposition 8, or it's fighting for adequate federal hate crime legislation. She makes no room for the GLBT communities to simultaneously fight for a multitude of worthy causes which we believe they can, and should, do. Among the top-ranking of those causes ought to be pushing the federal government to revise its hate crime law to include sexual orientation as a protected category. After all, safety first. However you try to understand her mental gymnastics, the strange truth is that Rostow is a gay woman in favor of having the gay community turn its back on hate crime legislation, legislation that would immediately stigmatize homophobia and penalize acts of domestic terrorism directed at the GLBT communities.

While H.K. Edgerton fails to see he is on the same side as the oppressor when it comes to resegregating the South, we hope that Ann Rostow learns soon that when it comes to gay hate crime legislation she is on the same side as some notable homophobes, such as the Reverend Ted Pike and Peter LaBarbera.

The Week in Hate: November 9 - 15, 2008

Please read the other hate-related news stories at our This Date In Hate calendar.

Sunday November 9, 2008: In rural Sun, Louisiana (St. Tammany Parish), Raymond "Chuck" Foster, 44, allegedly shot and killed Cynthia C. Lynch, 43, of Tulsa, Oklahoma who was recruited via the Internet to participate in a Ku Klux Klan ceremony. Her murder took place after an argument erupted when she attempted to leave the ceremony after changing her mind about joining the Klan. Ms. Lynch was to have participated in the ceremony and then return to Oklahoma to recruit Klan members. Foster, who lives in Washington Parish and who is the leader of a local Klan chapter called Dixie Brotherhood, was charged with second-degree murder, and seven other Klan members, all from Washington Parish, were charged with trying to help conceal the murder. These Klan members were charged with obstruction of justice in the case: Random Hines, 27; Danielle Jones, 23; Frank Stafford, 21; Alicia Watkins, 23; Timothy Michael Watkins, 30; Andrew Yates, 20; and, Shane Foster, 20, the son of Chuck Foster. The victim's body was found dumped on a roadside the day after her murder. Ms. Lynch's murder underscores the violent nature of America's oldest domestic terrorist organization.

Monday November 10, 2008: The Greenville, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP demanded a "strong response and punishment" for the four North Carolina State University students who spray-painted "Let's shoot that N----r in the head", and, "Hang Obama by a noose" in the school's Free Expression Tunnel on election night. Other than the NAACP, no one is taking any action against the students: the Secret Service has deemed there was no threat to the President-elect; campus police have said no crime occurred (even though communicating a threat to kill someone is not protected free speech and the use of a racial slur would qualify the threats as a hate crime), and school administration is keeping secret the identities of the four students who admitted painting the threats. With the presidential election votes still being counted in Missouri, the nation, with the aid of North Carolina State University police and administration, has just lowered the bar for the safety of a nationally elected official by allowing someone to publicly call for the murder of our president-elect.

Monday November 10, 2008: Although expanded hate crime legislation failed last year in the United States, on this date the Hungarian Parliament passed two measures designed to curb hate crimes and hate speech. One law allows victims to civilly sue perpetrators for engaging in degrading or intimidating behavior directed toward a person or a group of people based on the victims' nationality, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. The other law prohibits hate speech directed at someone based on their nationality, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation, speech that is designed to "incite hatred of a group of people."

Wednesday November 12, 2008: Alexander Edward Ou, 20, of Rochester, Minnesota, who was charged out of the Olmsted District Court with gross misdemeanor fourth-degree assault motivated by bias (a hate crime) for allegedly assaulting a 48-year-old man early on June 6th because of the man's race, was scheduled for an evidentiary hearing. Alexander's brother, Anthony Shieha Ou, 17, was been charged out of the Olmsted District Juvenile Court with the same crime.

Wednesday November 12, 2008: In Poplarville, Mississippi, former Nicholls State University student, Dyron Hart, 19, of Poplarville, is alleged to have sent, via Facebook, black students at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana, Louisiana State University, the University of Mississippi, and the University of Alabama, a message stating he planned to kill 3,000 people, including them, following Barack Obama’s presidential victory on November 5, 2008. Hart, who is himself African-American but who was posing as a white man when he sent the emails and who was a Nicholls State University football hopeful, was arrested by FBI agents on November 12, 2008. If convicted, the 6-foot-3-inch tall, 350-pound man, could receive up to five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and three years of supervised release if convicted.

Thursday November 13, 2008: On the campus of North Carolina State University over 500 people attended a rally to demonstrate opposition to the life-threatening and racist graffiti written by four known, but unidentified N.C. State students. The four spray-painted "Let's shoot that N----r in the head", and, "Hang Obama by a noose" in the school's Free Expression Tunnel on election night.

Friday November 14, 2008: In Syracuse, New York, Moses Cannon, 20, of Syracuse, was shot and killed while sitting in a car with his 18-year-old brother, Mark, allegedly by Dwight R. DeLee, 20, also from Syracuse, because DeLee did not like that Moses was openly gay. Police have charged DeLee, who allegedly left a party where anti-gay slurs were being directed at the Cannon brothers to get the murder weapon, with second-degree murder. Mark Cannon was slightly injured in the lethal anti-gay attack of his brother.

The 2008 Presidential Election Unleashes Rage

Politics is ugly. This presidential season, it got uglier. Some Americans responded to the first seriously viable black presidential candidate with hate speech; others responded by taking hate-fueled action, or at least by making plans to do so. In West Hollywood, California, ChadMichael Morrisette hung in effigy the likeness of vice-presidential hopeful, Sarah Palin. A life-size doll of presidential candidate John McCain sitting in a chimney surrounded by paper flames was perched nearby. The real GOP presidential candidate was booed by some of his own supporters when he announced at a campaign trail stop that Barack Obama is someone "you do not have to be scared of", a statement apparently the Arizona senator felt he had to make to quell media buzz about McCain-Palin rally attendees shouting "Kill him" and "terrorist" (referring to Obama), about GOP supporters making Barack Obama monkey dolls, about news reports of "Obama for President" signs being stolen from the lawns of his supporters or vandalized with racial slurs, and about vehicles sporting "Obama '08" bumper stickers being vandalized with racist graffiti. Unlike the issue of how to turn our failing economy around, Jesse Jackson's oft-quoted remark that in the United States "race matters" was hardly debatable this national election season.

From the beginning of his bid for the White House, during the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama's ground game team had been subjected to overtly hostile—and racist—remarks from the public. They would never vote for a n----r, some registered voters told Obama volunteers. Barack Obama, who is Christian and a member of the United Church of Christ in Chicago, was repeatedly and erroneously called a Muslim by some detractors, and the 28 million DVD distribution two months before the election by at least 70 newspapers in swing states (such as the Columbus Dispatch in Ohio) of the hate-filled propaganda piece titled Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West no doubt fueled Islamophobia and Obamophobia. Additionally, hate-filled emails found their way into the inboxes of Obama supporters; in at least one case, the FBI was contacted. One Republican blogger posted a poster of Barack Obama next to a noose with the headline that read: "Asphyxiation/The Fucking Solution." Evangelical minister Steve Foss, along with Homer Owen, spammed folks with a dire warning about how evil Barack Obama is. (Owen is an Evangelical guy who hawks born-again intolerance—and lip balm and soap—at his strange website, all in the name of Christ, of course). Although Foss said God was speaking to him about Obama and that it was God who was warning him about an Obama victory—Foss thereby disowning himself from his own hatred and throwing God under the bus at the same time—we predict that in four more years another right-wing Evangelical Christian will read tea leaves, hear God's voice, or stumble across something in the Bible that states, to them, that the next Democratic presidential candidate is—like Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and now Barack Obama—someone akin to the anti-Christ. As revelations from God go, pitching a Democratic presidential candidate as demonic is a pretty tired and overworked one.

Receiving less media attention, but occurring against the same history-making presidential election backdrop, was the Duval County Florida School Board's 5-2 vote along racial lines to retain the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest High School, this despite the facts that (a) Nathan Bedford Forrest (to quote Brenda Priestly Jackson, one of the two black board members who voted for a school name-change) "was a terrorist and racist" (Forrest was a member of the Ku Klux Klan) and (b) the majority of today's Nathan Bedford Forrest High School students are black.

Then there were the hate-crime incidents. In Denver in late August, four white men were arrested for plotting to assassinate Barack Obama when he was to give his party nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Next, within weeks of the election two white supremacists—Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tennessee and Paul Schlesselman, 18, of West Helena, Arkansas—were held without bond in Tennessee after authorities alleged that the pair had planned to rob a Tennesse gun store which was to supply the men with the means to carry out a killing spree against African-Americans. According to law enforcement officials, the two white supremacists also planned to assassinate Barack Obama while wearing white tuxedos and black top hats. On election day in South Ogden, Utah, an African-American family hung the American flag from their home after returning from the polling station where they had worked; within a half an hour, their flag had been set ablaze.

Such acts were not isolated to states where John McCain posted election-night victories either. In Springfield, Massachusetts, the Macedonia Church of God in Christ was suspiciously burned to the ground just hours after Barack Obama's victory speech in Chicago's Grant Park. Just hours before that, on Staten Island, a black Muslim teen was beaten while walking home by four white men apparently enraged that a black man had won the presidential election. Although they yelled no racial slurs—a hallmark sign of a race-based hate crime—the four angry white men yelled "Obama" as they descended upon their African-born victim with a baseball bat, and police ruled the unprovoked attack was, indeed, a hate crime. Meanwhile, at North Carolina State University on election night four students there spray-painted violent, racist messages about Barack Obama: one read, "Let's shoot that N----r in the head" and the other said, "Hang Obama by a noose." True to slave-state tradition, the administration has protected the students. According to WRAL Channel 5, the CBS television affiliate in Raleigh, the school's administration has not released the names of the students, and it said the four students will not be charged with a hate crime. For its part, the NAACP has called for N.C. State to expel the four. What would also be appropriate would be for the case to be turned over to the FBI for criminal investigation and prosecution. Since the identities of the racist spray-painters have been cloaked by the school's administration, we're guessing that the incident must be leaving N.C. State's black students with questions about their own safety on campus.

Hate crime incidents were also not limited to election night. On November 5, 2008, in Poplarville, Mississippi, former Nicholls State University student, Dyron Hart, 19, of Poplarville, is alleged to have sent, via Facebook, black students at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana, Louisiana State University, the University of Mississippi, and the University of Alabama, a message stating he planned to kill 3,000 people, including them. The 6-foot-3-inch tall, 350-pound Hart, who is himself African-American but who was posing as a white man when he sent the emails and who was a Nicholls State University football hopeful in the spring of 2008, was arrested by FBI agents. He is said to have confessed to sending the emails in order to get a "reaction." Two days after the election in Hardwick Township, New Jersey, in Warren County, an African-American man discovered that someone had burned a six-foot tall cross on his yard. He discovered the cross, which was near his pro-Obama banner that had also been deliberately charred, when taking his eight-year-old daughter to school.

Hate crime incidents this presidential election season were also not limited to targeting blacks. The unleashed racism brought about by an African-American man's run for the White House also unleased other forms of hatred. In La Qunita, California, Robert Sylk, the only Jewish candidate running for the City Council, had one of his political lawn signs stolen and vandalized—with a swastika. Then there was the California gay hate-crime assault: a man wearing a political button against "Proposition 8", which denies gay/lesbian couples the right to become legally married in that state, was attacked by a man who first directed a gay slur at his victim. Poignently, the attacker allegedly used a pro-Proposition 8 lawn sign as a weapon with which he is said to have beaten his victim. In Irvine, California, a City Council candidate who is Muslim, Todd Gallinger, received a death threat on October 7, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Some say that John McCain and Sarah Palin fueled their base's race-based emotions by attempting to characterize Barack Obama as someone who "pals around with terrorists" (to quote Ms. Palin) and someone who does not think like "we" do. London Telegraph journalist Tim Shipman reported that Ms. Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's character "provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling 'terrorist' and 'kill him' until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric." Mr. Shipman also wrote: "Sarah Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign." One thing is clear, the McCain-Palin attacks failed them: pre- and post-election polls showed that members of the public—Republicans and Democrats—did not care for the GOP's negative campaign stating that it went too far.

All of this election hatred is illuminating and it leads to two conclusions. One is that racism (and other forms of hatred) isn't killed off easily, even with a bi-racial (and self-identified African-American) president-elect. The other is that for the nation to continue to make civil rights gains—that is, for tolerance to trump intolerance—hate crimes must be dealt with swiftly and decisively by every level of the criminal justice system.

Gaslighting Northport, Alabama

In the early morning hours on July 14, 2008 in Northport, Alabama, which bills itself as an All-American City (no immigrants allowed?), a number of residents of the Quail Ridge Mobile Home Park—which is nestled between Harper Road and Park West Drive—had their vehicles, homes and yards vandalized with painted racial slurs and the letters “KKK”. The Unsolved Hate Crimes webpage of the Northport Police Department's website described the attack on the mixed-race trailer park community which sits adjacent to the Tuscaloosa Regional Airport in detail:

"Eight different Hate Crime Acts were reported...Six of the victims were Black and two were Hispanic. The following egregious acts were reported: One victim found nine bullet holes in her vehicle, the lettering 'KKK' painted on the left side of her mobile home from front to rear, the victim's vehicle was also keyed. A second victim had his tires cut. A third victim had 'KKK' painted on the side of her residence, and the racial slur, 'I hate N.......' painted on the front. A fourth victim had the racial slur, 'N.......' painted on her home. A fifth victim had the windows to his vehicles knocked out with large concrete blocks and 'KKK' painted in red on the side of his vehicle. A sixth victim had "KKK" painted on the side of her trailer and the same painted in the street in front of her residence. A seventh victim had the following racial slur painted on the hood of her vehicle, 'I hate N.......' The same was also painted on the south side of the victim's residence. An eighth victim had her tires cut.

Additionally, there was one White female who reported that small holes had been poked in the front and rear of her trailer.

The actual offenses ranged from Shooting into an Unoccupied Vehicle to Criminal Mischief in the First Degree."

The work of the KKK? Maybe. The Klan has been active in Alabama for well over a hundred years, and while the Southern Poverty Law Center has reported no specific Klan groups active for years in Tuscaloosa County, where Northport is located, there are certainly chapters of the KKK that act statewide; and, the county seat, nearby Tuscaloosa, has an active white racist hate group. Regardless of whether the culprits are members of a hate group or not, the poor folks at Quail Ridge are no strangers to hate crimes. In October, 2006, when Northport was preparing for its annual Kentuck Festival, the Northport Police were dealing with hate crime acts at and near the trailer park. According to the police's webpage, these hate crimes—referred to collectively as "Incident 1"—have yet to be solved. The October, 2006, hate crimes involved the burning of a Mexican flag, slashed tires, burned crosses, and racist comments and symbols (including the letters "KKK" and swastikas) painted on homes.

Perhaps because the Northport Police Chief, Robert W. Green, is African-American, law enforcement in the west-central Alabama town of about 21,000 appeared very prepared to solve the recent hate crimes. From their Unsolved Hate Crimes webpage:

"We have intensified our efforts and we have also received the valuable assistance of the FBI. Additionally, a $12,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those parties who were responsible for these Hate Crime Acts.

Anyone with any information regarding the Hate Crime Activity at Quail Ridge Mobile Home Park should contact one of the following: The Northport Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division at: (205) 333-3008; Crime Stoppers at : (205)752-STOP or the FBI at (205) 758-4277"

The Quail Ridge hate crimes did not go unnoticed by the media. The Tuscaloosa News reported the crimes, including an ominous photo of Antate Wilder's SUV which was shot full of bullets among other photos of the crimes. Tuscaloosa News staff writer, Stephanie Taylor, noted that an anonymous person had donated $10,000 for reward money for the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator(s). Rightfully, the Northport police immediately began its investigation; and, since intimidating someone at their home because of their race also violates the federal civil rights law, the local police were correct to involve the FBI. Northport Mayor Harvey Fretwell promised the perpetrators would be brought to justice at a press conference attended by Mr. Charles Dorsey, the head of Tuscaloosa's FBI office. An editoral said those responsible for the Quail Ridge attacks must be dangerous sociopaths; it called for incarcerating the perpetrators. It was the kind of community chorus one wants to hear after a hate crime has been committed. The kind of chorus that leads to appropriate action.

Probably because of the combination of quick police responsiveness, adequate press coverage of the crimes, appropriate outcry from the community, and a sweet reward, results came swiftly. The Northport police announced on July 18, 2008, the arrest of a 15-year-old boy in the hate crime attack on the mobile home park; they also arrested a 17-year-old the following day. The 15-year-old suspect was charged with two felony counts of Criminal Mischief, seven misdemeanor counts of Criminal Mischief, and one felony count of Shooting into an Unoccupied Vehicle. The 17-year-old male was charged with 3rd Degree Criminal Mischief. The police did not release their names to the public, because the pair were charged as juveniles.

But then a funny thing happened in the town comprised of 26% Black folks and 2% Hispanics, the town with the black police chief.

The hate crime part of the hate crimes perpetrated against eight persons of color at the Quail Ridge Moble Home Park vanished. Specifically, Tuscaloosa News staff writer, Steve Reeves, reported:

"[Chief of Police] Green said, however, that the juvenile arrested Thursday has not been charged under hate crime statutes. He said that came under federal law and that the FBI, which helped with the investigation, indicated that it would not apply."

Reeves was not misreporting; NBC13's Jon Paepcke also said the town will not file hate crime charges against the perpetrators and that the FBI is not pursuing the case. FBI agent Dorsey's appearance at the mayor's press conference days before the arrests was, apparently, just window-dressing, a way to kill a few hours on the tax-payer's dime. Guess there was nothing really needing attention at the Tuscaloosa FBI office, so what the hell, might as well show up at the Northport mayor's press conference.

In addition to law enforcement changing the reality of what really occurred at Quail Ridge, some in the media were changing the reality of what occurred also: suddenly a blatant, race-based series of hate crimes directed at eight people of color was being called something else. Jon Paepcke reported the letters "KKK" and the phrase "I hate Niggers" that were scrawled at the trailer park were mere "racial undertones." Specifically, Paepcke wrote on the NBC13.com website whose banner reads "ACCURACY MATTERS":

"Despite the racial undertones of the graffiti, Northport police said Friday [July 18, 2008] the juveniles don’t face hate crime charges."

Let's remind Paepcke of Merriam-Webster's definition of the word undertone: "a low or subdued utterance." Let's remind him also that KKK stands for Ku Klux Klan, the oldest domestic terrorist group in America. Let's remind him that factions of the Klan have been persecuting African-Americans since its beginnings. Since when have KKK and N-word graffiti ever been subdued utterances, Jon Paepcke?

Should the hate crime victims here be feeling had and mad? Yes, of course. Failing to file hate crime charges against someone who allegedly slathers a neighborhood with racist graffiti, who allegedly shoots bullet holes in the vehicle of an African-American, and allegedly damages vehicles while on a racist crime spree is absolutely inexcusable. Mayor Fretwell should insist hate crime charges be filed against the two teenagers arrested or else ask police chief Green to tender his immediate resignation (or else be fired). But let's be real: when was the last time a white mayor demanded of a black police chief to file hate crime charges because of attacks specifically targeting black and Hispanic folks?

What about the tipster, the person who provided the police with information that led to the arrests of the two alleged offenders, should this person be feeling bad? Absolutely not, this person is a silent hero who no doubt took some personal risk coming forward to provide information to the police about a hateful person who owns and shoots a gun. But, should this person be feeling had? Yes, of course. Steve Reeves reported:

"Police received a tip that led to the first boy’s arrest immediately after announcing a $12,000 reward in the case Wednesday [July 16, 2008], [police chief] Green said. Payment of the reward is contingent upon a conviction.... Green was concerned that the case would be difficult to solve [get a conviction] because none of the residents of the mobile home park, which is off of Harper Road, near the Tuscaloosa Regional Airport, saw or heard anything that night."

Translation to the tipster and also to anyone else in that community who might want to trust the genuiness of the Northport police: thanks for the information, it led us to make two arrests which make us look good, but we aren't going to bother to get the forensic evidence left by the bullets and the bullet holes, so we won't get a conviction, because the pair we arrested don't have to testify against themselves and we have no eyewitnesses to testify against them, and so you won't get your reward money. Now go away.

Were the victims set-up to believe that its city actually cares about them and about vigorously combatting hate crimes when in fact that isn't the case? Yes. Was the tipster set-up to place himself/herself in some jeopardy with the false promise of a reward? Yes. Will the secrecy of the juvenile defendants' identities prevent the public from knowing who exactly has been accused; and what, if any, punishment might come their way for placing in fear an entire community? Of course. Without the ability of the media and the public to be able to track the outcome of the legal case against the two accused of the hate-crimes-not-being-pursued-as-hate-crimes, no one will know if any measure of justice will be served here. For sure injustice has already occurred: unmistakable hate crimes perpetrated against eight good folks at the Quail Ridge Moble Home Park happened, and no hate crime charges—federal or state—will ever be brought against the two teens arrested. For the victims and the larger community, that's a psychological injustice as well as a legal one.

Aside from the "these-hate-crimes-aren't-really-hate-crimes" lie being now voiced by the police chief, let's not forget another lie in all of this. As reported by The Tuscaloosa News and NBC13 television, Northport Police Chief Robert W. Green communicated to the public that hate crime laws are federal, not state, laws. His words lead one to falsely conclude he has no power, no authority, to press hate crime charges against the two teens recently arrested, or anyone else for that matter. Green's words erroneously suggest only the FBI could do that. This is a lie, because, of course, a police chief knows better. Police chiefs in Alabama know that Alabama has a hate crime statute which covers race-based crimes, regardless of the age or other demographic features of an alleged assailant. This would be Code of Alabama § 13A-5-13, chief Green, which is part of a larger document you may want to familiarize yourself with. Words and inaction like that of police chief Green—words and inaction that allow hate to flourish in his community on his watch—have been called an inaction of evil by one famous social psychologist who has studied similar forms of abdication of responsibility. That's a fair assessment, but there's another way to describe chief Green's inaction and the words of some in the media.

Gaslighting.

One Man's Quest to Quell Free Speech

"Far-left nuts" of Toledo, Ohio beware: should you publicly voice your opposition to the war in Iraq, voice your support for universal health care, or dare to criticize former Lucas County (Ohio) Republican Party chairman turned federal inmate, Tom Noe, you could be hearing from Michael Edward Coon, the 52-year-old white, Christian owner of Holland Benefits Group, a 24-year-old employee benefits consulting firm based in Ohio. If you’re retired surgeon Dr. S. Amjad Hussain, a University of Toledo trustee and guest editorial writer for The Toledo Blade, you already have heard from Coon who lives in the Point Place section of Toledo.

Coon was arraigned in Maumee Municipal Court Monday June 23, 2008, on three counts of felony ethnic intimidation (that’s Ohio’s kindly name for a hate crime) for allegedly sending "hate emails" to Dr. Hussain in apparent response to Dr. Hussain’s published editorials in The Toledo Blade. Coldly, some of the emails were sent after Dr. Hussain was the victim of a violent home invasion where he was sprayed with mace and pistol-whipped; and, heartlessly, Coon’s emails expressed delight in that crime. So much for the Golden Rule of Christianity. It seems Coon has been on a one-man campaign to quell the free speech of Toledo residents whose political viewpoints differ from his. He firmly supports the war in Iraq and is opposed to universal health care. Coon has admitted he has telephoned people who have publicly shared sociopolitical viewpoints different from his own—persons who have had their letters to the editor published in The Toledo Blade—and he has said that these people "are far-left nuts." Of course if he’s checked opinion polls lately, Coon will see that most Americans (even many self-described Christians like himself) are disappointed with our President’s performance in office, are against the war in Iraq (like Pakistani-born Dr. Hussain), and are desperately hungry for something other than our current health care system. We hope Coon has good telephone and internet service plans; he's got a lot of Toledo residents to contact.

According to the meticulous reporting of Toledo Blade staff writer, Kate Giammarise, since Coon’s hate-crime arrest, others have come forward to say that they have received harassing, scary telephone calls from Coon. One woman said she changed her telephone number to an unlisted one after Coon's menacing calls to her home following her letters to the editor in the Toledo Blade criticizing Tom Noe for orchestrating the investor-theft, money-laundering scheme now known as Coingate, and criticizing the war in Iraq. So frightened was this woman after Coon's telephone calls that she also contacted the police.

In his defense about his charges, Coon has said that he never threatened or intimidated Dr. Hussain who is Muslim. Talking about himself in the third-person, Coon said: "Coon is not a psycho, Coon is an American patriot." Coon may not be psycho, but Coon may have crossed the line from constitutionally protected free speech to the kind considered criminal--the kind that threatens and intimidates--because one email sent from Coon to Dr. Hussain, quoted from Toledo’s NBC affiliate, is said to have contained the following words:

"...Beheading Islamists will be as fun as a turkey shoot. You are in my sights!!!"

Even without the national backdrop of increased violent crimes committed against Muslims and those perceived to be either Muslim or from the Middle East since the 9-11 terroristic attacks, such a statement can hardly be viewed as free speech, can it? "Beheading Islamists" followed by "turkey shoot" followed by "You are in my sights": how could that be considered free speech? How could that not be seen as criminal intimidation based on religious hatred? Coon is also reported to have communicated to Dr. Hussain:

"frightened scared immigrants like you have it coming big time."

Coon has said he posed "zero threat" to Dr. Hussain, which of course a jury will decide. One thing is for sure, we wouldn't want to take our chances dealing with a man with a violent past, such as Coon. As Ms. Giammarise wrote:

"in 2002, Coon pleaded no contest and was found guilty in Lucas County Common Pleas Court to aggravated assault, and attempted intimidation of a crime victim or witness. The charges stem from Coon's attack on a 19-year-old neighbor with a bat, lacerating his head and breaking the young man's left arm, according to a police report."

Wow, a then 46-year-old businessman taking a baseball bat to the body of a 19-year-old neighbor. So much for the Christian tenet Love Thy Neighbor. In that 2002 case, Coon initially pleaded Not Guilty, but it appears that on December 10, 2001, he entered a new plea of Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, and was referred the following day for a psychiatric evaluation. The case was then scheduled for trial on January 3, 2002, but on that date there was a question about Coon's competence to stand trial. So, the case was postponed until January 8, 2002, at which time Coon changed his plea again; he entered his No Contest plea for the two fourth-degree felony charges, thus avoiding trial. A month later Coon was sentenced. He was ordered to pay a $2,500 fine, plus restitution and court costs, he was ordered to three years of probation (though in reality he was off probation after two years), and he was ordered to have no contact with the victim. Pleading No Contest to a violent criminal act is a savvy thing to do for a person with substantial financial assets, by the way, because evidence from a criminal court case that has a No Contest finding cannot be used against a defendant in a civil lawsuit. And it appears Coon has assets.

According to Ohiobiz.com, Coon’s Holland Benefits Group, a company with fewer than five employees, rakes in between $500,000 and $1,000,000 in annual revenue. You’d think with a business that lucrative, Coon would be too busy to track down and contact those whose sociopolitical beliefs differ from his own. Or, you'd think that Coon could see an obvious reality and maybe say to himself: Coon's not fighting in war-torn Iraq, Coon has a cushy white-collar lifestyle. You'd think he'd grasp that clear reality and that it would have motivated him to want to protect and keep his sweet CEO lifestyle, a lifestyle likely flushed down the toilet, if convicted as charged, just as the cushy lifestyle of Republican money-launderer Thomas W. Noe was flushed after he was convicted of laundering more than $45,000 to President Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign. (Noe was convicted in November, 2006, of 29 felonies in Ohio, and was sentenced to 18 years in state prison, which is to be served following his 27-month federal prison term. Noe, 53, is serving his federal prison term at The Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) - Low in Coleman, Florida, and he is expected to complete his federal prison term on October 27, 2008).

Detective Mark Woodruff of the Lucas County Sheriff's Department, who is the chief investigator in the Coon case, said, "There's a line somewhere out there between freedom of speech and criminal conduct" and police believe that line was crossed in the emails to Dr. Hussain. Regarding the accusations against him and his pending trial, Coon has said defiantly:

"We'll see if 12 real Americans will think this guy was abused, harassed, or intimidated. I can't wait to get to trial."

Neither can we, Coon, neither can we.

Coon is scheduled to appear in court July 3, 2008. In the meantime, he has been barred from having any contact with Dr. Hussain and he has also been barred from entering any building where Dr. Hussain is, according to a civil protection order issued by Lucas County Common Pleas Judge James Jensen on June 24, 2008.