Posted on 12/08/2007 5:46:05 PM PST by freespirited
BALTIMORE - A white woman beaten by a group of black students on a bus has prompted a hate-crime investigation, attempts by transit officials to reassure riders of the safety of the system, and radio talk-show chatter over comparisons with the Jena Six case.
The uproar prompted two leading black politicians to issue statements decrying the attack.
Sarah Kreager, 26, suffered broken facial bones and other injuries after she was punched, kicked and dragged off the bus Tuesday afternoon. Kreager's companion, Troy Ellis, was also attacked, but not beaten as severely. Kreager has an unlisted phone number and attempts to reach her Friday were unsuccessful.
MTA police said evidence has not been found to support claims by the students' parents that the children were provoked.
"We are at this point investigating it as a hate crime," MTA spokeswoman Jawauna Greene said.
The attack immediately drew comparisons on talk radio and Internet blogs to the Jena, La. case in which a white student was attacked by a group of black students, leading to demontrations by black activists who alleged local authorities were prosecuting blacks more harshly than whites. Many callers and web site posters questioned what they considered a lack of outrage over the latest attacks.
But Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon and Rep. Elijah Cummings, both black, issued statements condemning the attack.
"The physical assault of any human being, regardless of motivation, is conduct that is unacceptable. As police continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding this terrible crime, we must rise together as a community to take a stand against violence toward any of our neighbors," Cummings said in statement issued Friday.
Dixon said after the attack that she was extremely concerned about the beating, which she described as "deplorable."
"I will not tolerate intimidation or violence anywhere in our city," the mayor said. "I have offered the MTA whatever assistance they need to investigate this incident and to do our part to ensure the public transportation system is safe for everyone."
MTA Northern District Capt. David Marzola said the middle school students, three females and six males 14 to 15 years old, are also accused of menacing an elderly white passenger and assaulting the bus operator, a black male who defended his passenger.
"He probably saved this gentleman's life," Marzola said.
The driver was not identified because he is considered a witness to a crime, the MTA said.
Video from a surveillance camera on the bus is also being analyzed as part of the investigation, the MTA said.
The students, who ride the bus to Robert Poole Middle School, have been released into the custody of their parents, Greene said.
Col. John Gavrilis, deputy chief of the MTA Police, said MTA Police have stationed an officer on the line since Tuesday and the city school police force has assigned extra officers to the Hampden school.
Greene said the nine students have had their bus privileges revoked.
"Riding the bus is a privilege," she said. "Public safety is our primary concern."
MTA officials noted the system is safe with a total of 381 crimes this year on the transit system, which carries 250,000 riders a day, with property crimes accounting for the vast majority.
However, the attack was the latest in a string of high-profile crimes to have taken place on or near MTA facilities.
Nicole Edwards, 17, was fatally stabbed near a Baltimore light rail station in November, 2006, during an armed robbery of Edwards and her brother. Lataye S. King, 17, was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday in the case, and a 15-year-old co-defendant is to be sentenced in February for robbery conspiracy and aggravated assault.
In October, a twice-convicted rapist was accused of attacking a woman at a light rail station in Linthicum. And an MTA officer shot and killed a robbery suspect late last year at a Reisterstown Metro station after police said he pulled a gun.
yep....I was right. It’s not a race problem....it’s a geography problem....lmao
I'm pretty sure you and I have a difference of philosophies here.
Fair enough, you condone unpunished racial beatings by black gangs and I don't condone any beatings.
I don't think it's just a matter of me not having read the same articles you have.
I do more than read articles. I have seen the world in person not just out of a basement window.
If you know so damn much and are so progressive why don't you go ride the Baltimore buses for a few weeks and "dialog" with these misunderstood "youths"? Perhaps you can discuss things over dinner with the maggot parents that defend them.
THEN get back to us.
Note, I stated that I would disown my son for this behavior and you skipped that point too.
“Greene said the nine students have had their bus privileges revoked.”
Kick their asses across the State of Maryland.
How many trillions of dollars are thrown at poverty and public education? What has been the effect been is
a disaster. Education is readily available to any of
these impoverished youts. These kids as in Chicago
can get breakfast lunch and after school snacks.
It’s not for lack of material or resources.
There is a distinct racist culture which exists in the black
community. Just ask Barack Obama. He belongs to one
of those cooky churches.
Our problem is that we never held this disintegrating
culture for it’s own sins. The social and moral glue which
once exist in poor communities is gone.
It’s not just Baltimore it’s Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia,
Milwaukee, LosAngeles.
Yer good!
Most profoundly racist statement on this thread.
While I agree with you, ditto h, in general, I disagree in particular.
We cannot undo the damage that has been done to the family structure in the inner cities by the “welfare nation”. How I wish we could, for so much talent has been wasted.
We can’t fix the mess that has been created, unless we are willing to “face the whirlwind”, and that makes me so sad.
I guess when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, the physical territory moved to a new geographical location because conditions there sure did change.
I have proven I cannot debate because I disagree with you? If you say so.
I don’t condone unpunished beatings by anyone, I don’t know what gave you the idea I want them to go unpunished. I merely said that the article never suggested that they would get off, and I say that because I don’t think they should get off based on what I have read about the case.
I have experienced life also, and have come to different conclusions. Do you always react with hostility when someone disagrees with you?
You should go see that movie The Great Debators with Denzel Washington. It has debating and black people. Two things you don’t understand.
And if you call me a progressive again, I’ll fire back with insults of my own.
I think all elected officials should represent their constituents. That’s how a democratic republic should work, in my view.
That’s why I don’t think it’s a horrible act of racism that we’ve had almost exclusively White Anglo Saxon Protestant men as Presidents. The US has been, and still is, largely a White Anglo Saxon Protestant country.
I read in another article that it won't be.
You simply cannot answer a question or directly address a point can you?
“Progressive” was a compliment concerning your behavior on this thread.
Now that you have called me a racist I am done with you as you are undeserving of my time.
LISTEN TO ME....it’s not a HATE crime, it’s just a CRIME. If you keep this up, you Americans will end up like Canada, where people are being arrested up here for expressing an opinion. It’s getting scary in the Great Pink North, let me tell you.
I predict they’ll put this one on the back burner til we all forget about it and then it’ll just go away.
I am a firm believer that all women should adapt their lives so that when out in public, they *always* carry a short knife in easy access. And if menaced by a male, they should nick him with it. This is true around the world and in all cultures.
The standard in the US is that a blade less than 3 inches in length is legal for about anyone to carry. And while it is difficult in ordinary circumstances to kill a person with such a knife, it is easy to give them a noteworthy nick with one.
Most men not terribly drunk, will immediately withdraw if nicked with a knife. It will not provoke further aggression, it will cause them to retreat and be interested only in their injury.
In such a case, the overwhelming odds are that anyone in authority will respect that the woman was defending herself.
So there is no reason at all for women not to do this. It would prevent any number of attacks on women by aggressive men, and once a certain threshold of women start carrying short knives, there will be an overall improvement of male behavior, for the simple reason that men will not know which females are “carrying”, so no longer feel free to harass or assault women.
For women to carry short knives, and to advocate to other women and girls that they do the same, in no way diminishes them or comes across as unfeminine. The truth is that women should make it a practice to socially insist that other women carry knives as well, that it is “asocial” to NOT carry a knife. So much so that if one of her friends is without a knife in public, a woman should loan or give her an extra short knife, just so that she would not be without.
Imagine the impact in the world if women did this. Not just American women, but Muslim women, Hindu women, African women, etc. It would change the world.
they can prey upon The Man without fear of reprisal
These c_ _ _s sure better be prayin if they decide to mess with me and a pocket full of 45ACP. Only 7 rounds, but betcha bone fragments can take out the other 2.
Their culture (?) is one of aggression when they vastly out number their victum. Seen it happen time after time to younger white kids on the skool bus.
Remember how car jacking stopped almost over-night when conceal carry kicked in?
Calling someone a progressive on Free Republic is never a compliment.
I thought I addressed your points directly. The only thing I didn’t comment on was your statement about disowning your son, and I didn’t feel it was my place to remark on that one.
If there is one thing I will concede to you, it’s that you understand your relationship with your kid better than I do.
I’m not calling you racist, either. I don’t know what’s in your heart. Sorry if you took it that way.
I think nearly all of us agree that there should be no hate crime laws. What bothers us is that if a white guy uses the “N” word in an argument with a black guy over a parking space, everyone is screaming for hate crime charges to be filed. Ditto if someone hangs a noose, or whatever. But when a gang of blacks half kill an innocent white woman, the authorities start rationalizing it as just “random violence”, or the result of “socio-economic deprivation”.
You’re correct that hate crime laws in Canada have reached the point of shutting down open debate on homosexuality and many other subjects. It’ll reach that point here, too, if it hasn’t begun to already.
Execute them. They are mad dogs.
I reacted to that news with "What???" While I personally have been uncomfortable, as a whole, in treating younger criminals as adults, I am outraged by this attack and severe punishment is a must. Yet IMO their parents should be checked out. Some, if not all, of them may be the actual guilty ones here.
Can you imagine the gall they had to try to put blame on the victim? They reared these kids and allowed them to become the thugs they are.
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