W. Virginia Hate Crime
Today I want to redirect my focus on something other then the “Jena 6″. I feel like we have all become so focused on this one issue (I am guilty of this as well) that we have forgotten about other conflicts going on among black people.
I am talking about the 20-year-old woman in West Virginia who was held captive by three white males and three females. During her captivity she was emotionally, sexually, and physically abused. Instead prosecutors want to charge the six suspects with stiffer penalties such as kidnapping. If they are charged with kidnapping they can face a life sentence.
Federal civil rights or state hate crime charges are only an option. Officials are saying that it is probably best to charge the suspects with kidnapping for successful prosecution.
I must admit I am not very familiar with West Virginia laws, but what about charging them with attempted murder and the hate crime? They are facing sexual assault charges and kidnapping, but they attempted to kill this woman by forcing her to eat rat feces, cutting her ankle and calling her the N-Word and telling her this happened because she was black.I don’t know, does it sound like a hate crime to you?
stop hate crimesOriginally uploaded by asianskakid
September 27, 2007 at 1:33 am
I was reading that the reason why they are not charging them with a hate crime is because if they charge them with the other penalties it has a stiffer sentence which would be the life in prison. To me whether or not they are charged with a hate crime doesn’t matter but what does matter is that life in prison sentence. If they get that it doesn’t really matter what charges they were prosecuted with.