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.
That's simply not true. These punks are looking at aggravated assault, possibly attempted murder, with or without a hate crimes charge. If the state proves its case, they will not walk in the free sunshine again for decades, if ever.
It's amazing to me how on one side, folks are screaming because minorities get away with murder every day and twice on Sunday. In the other ear, I hear people shouting because minorities are disproportionately convicted of murder. Everyone is put upon. Everyone is a victim.
Pre-emptively, I'll say forget OJ. He had unlimited funds to hire experts to muddy the waters. His is not a typical case. There's an old adage among lawyers: "interesting cases make bad law."
Minorities who commit crimes against whites are more often convicted, and serve more time, than whites who commit crimes against minorities. I'm not going to get into the endless tangle over whether minorities commit more crime, which they certainly do, or whether they're more distrusted by juries, which they certainly are. But the notion that the "race card" is a free pass is absurd, and is based on a few high-profile cases lie OJ and Michael Jackson. 99% of the time, it goes the other way.
O.J. Simpson agrees with you.
You should have a chat with my kids. Ask them who's side my husband and I would be on if they were in the wrong. They know and that is why they don't steal, harass and display direspectful behavior to anyone. I know they are kids and do stupid kid things but there is a line that they know NEVER to cross.
This is the type of nonsense that reminds me why I moved out of the city.
You don't think they were homeschoolers who had never learned social skills?
The problem is, there are hate crime laws on the books. Since that is the case, what are we supposed to do? The authorities already have a tendency to charge any white who looks crossways at a minority with a "hate crime". Yet, when minorities brutally attack whites, there's a lot of liberal drivel from the authorities about how the incident didn't quite rise to the level of a "hate crime", or about how it was just "random violence" or was triggered by poverty or something else.
As long as these idiotic hate crime laws are on the books, it would be suicidal for us to not insist that they be enforced fairly. Otherwise, we'll end up like the parents of those white schoolgirls a couple of years ago. The girls were playing basketball at a public court. A group of black girls showed up and said the court was their turf. The white girls said they were almost finished with their practice and asked for a few more minutes. The black girls beat the living hell out of them, screaming racial slurs at them as they did it.
When the black girls came to trial, the white girls' parents actually asked for leniency and didn't seek hate crime prosecution. Instead, they repeated all the usual mantras about how the black girls must have come from a bad environment, etc.
Is it your contention that as long as hate crime laws are on the books, conservatives should refuse to demand that they be enforced when whites are attacked, out of "principle"? That sounds suicidal.
This is the mess liberals easily get us into with nonsense such as hate crime laws. When these idiotic laws were first proposed, a lot of "politically correct" conservatives jumped on the bandwagon. Gee, we can show minorities and gays that we aren't racists and homophobes if we support these laws, and then they'll vote Republican. Well, the results are in. The groups in question still vote Democrat. The laws in question are expanding beyond all reason into thoughtcrime territory. And our only option is to either try to have the laws enforced fairly (an uphill battle), or to let them only be enforced against us.
I agree 100%. We should not prosecute folks for what they are thinking. Additionally, it is never justice when laws don't pertain to every citizen equally. Public outcry has caused officials to initiate an investigation to determine if this beating was a 'hate crime'. If the colors of those involved had been reversed, it would have been immediately assumed that it was a 'hate crime' and an investigation would have been necessary to prove otherwise.
If I were one of those girls, I would NEVER forgive my parents for thinking my safety and quite possibly my very life less important than PC mantra BS. To sympathize with urban thugettes more than one's own offspring!?!??! VILE!!!!
It wasn’t what they were thinking, it was what motivated them. (The color of her skin.) They had no other reason to attack, according to the tape.
Bump
Well said!!!!!!!!
Agree with ya, I hate (no pun intended) this concept of hate crimes. However, if the powers that be insist on making them when they can out of white on black crimes, they had better be prepared for outrage if they don't charge them on crimes like this.
Bump
Mandatory exile/repatriation
&&&
Not applicable to this case. I seriously doubt that any of these kids are the progeny of any recent immigrants. Their roots most likely go back more than 200 years.
You don’t think they were homeschoolers who had never learned social skills?
&&&
Any of the learning they recived at home was most likely in antisocial behavior.
If you think about it, parents are really no longer raising their children. The most important people in a child’s life are now their same age peers. They learn how to interact socially thru their peers. Is it any wonder that many are little savages? Children are not innately kind, generous, etc. There is a reason that human children are nurtured within a family unit for many years, compared to many other animals. It takes alot to teach them how to behave in a complex society. We are leaving one of the most important jobs in civilization to those least capable of doing it. Children.
susie
I know and it is sad.
It’s worse than sad. :(
Susie
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