Posted on 12/27/2013 11:33:21 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The US Department of Justice on Thursday stepped into the cultural fray about the so-called “knockout game” when it brought federal hate crime charges against a white Texas man for assaulting an unsuspecting black man.
The decision shines a brighter spotlight on the knockout game, in which an assailant tries to knock out a bystander with a single punch. A spate of incidents have gathered national attention in recent months, though it is unclear whether the game has become more popular or whether the Internet has simply allowed for isolated incidents to be broadcast more widely.
The majority of the reported incidents, however, have involved black men targeting white victims – and none triggered federal involvement. The fact that the Justice Department has elected to step in now, when a black man was the victim, has led to criticism among conservative pundits that the Obama administration is applying the hate-crime statute unevenly.
“The reason why you have black perpetrators and white victims being prosecuted asymmetrically hinges on what evidence there is about why they’re doing what they’re doing,” says Donald Green, a political scientist at Columbia University in New York.
Conrad Barrett was arrested Thursday and charged under federal hate crimes law, which defines a hate crime as “motivated by enmity or animus against a protected class.” (The Federal Bureau of Investigation also lists anti-white crimes as hate crimes.)
“If suspects call the victim racial names, and one of the other witnesses testifies to that effect, it would be prosecutable as a hate crime,” says Professor Green, speaking generally about knockout cases...
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
A key fact is going unreported by the CSMonitor.
The white offender was previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder (”mania” only in his case).
He was taking lithium prior to the attack, and is still taking lithium in jail.
Why don’t black perps get the same attention in the media?
That’s a rhetorical question btw.
Well....they’re sorta black.
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