Recently in Hate Crimes Category

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39726149/ns/us_news-security/

This article was published on msnbc.com by Associated Press on October 18, 2010.  The FBI were involved in this investigation (mainly because it has to do with threats of bombing).


"The trial featured 13 days of testimony by undercover informant Shahed Hussain, who met Cromitie at a mosque north of New York City. Prosecutors also relied on hundreds of hours of video and audiotape of the men discussing the scheme at the informant's home, handling fake weapons -- even praying together."

"Jurors deliberated for more than a week. A judge denied a request for a mistrial last week after a juror came across a document in an evidence binder that shouldn't have been there. The juror was dismissed."


What are the processes that the jury went through?

Do you think it was fair that the judge denied a request for a mistrial after a juror came across a document in an evidence binder?

What would you have done if you were that Judge and presented with that dilemma?

 

Im sure everyone heard about the recent attempted terrorist attack in times square. I personally think it is pretty scary that after all the security precautions that are in use these days at airports and in the United States in general, this could still happen. It kinda makes you think there is really nothing that we can do about terrorism. This article explains that Faisal Shahzad was pulled off of a plane in which he was attempting to escape to the middle east after a car bomb that he had set up in the middle of Times Square inadvertantly didnt go off. Shahzad was on a plane that was taxxing down the run way attempting to take off when authorities demanded the plane be turned around. The FBI has associated Shahzad with the Pakistan Taliban. He has admitted on video that he was behind the attempted bombing. He is facing terrorism and weapons of mass destruction charges. Obama stated that 100s of lives were saved thanks so the actions of an ordinary citizen and law enforcement.  

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100504/ap_on_re_us/us_times_square_car_bomb

For my book report due in class, I read the book Active Liberty which is all about our government. I decided to look for things relating to government and psychology for my blog. I found this article http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hidden-motives/201002/our-broken-government talking about how many feel that our government is "broken". It seems that many politicians are only worried about how much power they have rather than worrying about everyone's rights as an American. The article talks about how a week or so ago, a Texan slammed his plan into a building where the IRS was at. He had left a suicide note saying that Islamic terrorists are not the only ones who hate our government. What does the government need to do in order to install more faith in the people in this country?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/14/ny.hate.crime/index.html

While looking up hate crimes, I found this article about a gay man who was beaten nearly to death by two men who were against homosexuals. I have not found out if these men were convicted of their crime, but it sure looked like they were going to be in prison for about 25 years.

What really shocked me was that this man had done nothing wrong to these two men. All he did was go to a store to buy cigarettes and when he was leaving, they yelled profanities at him, called him vicious names, robbed him, and severely beat him. Another fact that I couldn't believe was that this man was almost 50 years old. The two men who beat him were in their 20s. Why would someone want to beat up a middle aged man that did nothing wrong? That really upsets me, because young people are always supposed to look up to the people that are older than us. I hope these young men do go to prison just so they can see and feel the torture that they did to an innocent man.

I also found a statement that was made from the victim himself. It tells about what he remembers and how he felt now that he has become a victim of a hate crime.

http://www.towleroad.com/2009/10/reminder-vigil-today-for-nyc-hate-crime-victim.html

 

 

I was doing research for another class about how people with mental disabilities were being treated after committing a crime. I actually came across a very sad story of a mentally disabled woman tortured to death by people she thought were her friends. This is a very eye opening story and thanks to the new law passed by President Obama, prohibiting hate crimes against those who are mentally disabled, her so called "friends" will be punished as they should be.

She was not only murdered, but tortured prior to her death. Her "friends" did things to her such as making here drink urine and chemicals and writing a suicide note to go along with the idea that is was her who wanted to die. She was also physically abused. She was hit with various objects and her body was stuffed into a garbage can. I actually think that after someone commits these acts towards another person the real question is who really has a mental disability? Jennifer may not have been at the same learning level as her "friends", but she is not the one who felt the need to torture another human being. If I were evaluating the case I would say that her attackers had a serious mental problem that needed to be taken care of.

Here is a link to just one of the sites on the case and at the bottom of the site there are links to other information on the case. I think everyone who believes people with mental disabilities are not positive parts of society should read this article. It is not right for someone to be treated differently because they are different than you.

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/02/17/crimesider/entry6216214.shtml 

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/05/21/smiley.face.killer/index.html

I came across this theory while watching the evening news tonight. The disappearance of an ISU student has grabbed the hearts of Iowans and has had many people speculating. With lack of evidence police are might be turning to theory. Speculation surrounding the case has hinted that the disappearance might be related to a series of deaths that have been plaguing the Midwest for almost 2 decades. The Smiley Face Killer Theory is a working police theory that links over 40 different accidental drownings to a serial killer or group of killers. The circumstances of the cases are all similar. All the victims were 20 to 23 year old males who were popular and were in great academic standing. The autopsies of the victims show no sign of foul play but they do indicate that the victims were intoxicated at the time of their drowning. A series of smiley faces placed near where some the bodies were found lead many to speculate that the drowning were not by accident. In Lacrosse Wisconsin alone there has been a total of 9 different drown-victims and several more in the states of Iowa and Minneapolis. Speculation around this theory has grown so much that they have even made an official website for the theory.

http://sfkillers.com/?page_id=2.    

FBI has made an official statement on the subject that they do not believe these deaths are linking in any way and they are still ruling these drownings as accidental. There is still no word on ISU student that is still missing but the police have not ruled anything out yet.

Playing devil's advocate here, I am going to go along with the theory and pose some hypothetical scenarios. Firstly, regardless of if the recent disappearance of an ISU student is linked in any way to this theory, the deaths of nearly 40 other male college students is more than enough to raise an eyebrow at. The circumstances of the case might lead us to make some initial investigatory inferences. First, all the victims were male, college age, in good academic standing (deans list or above), and all were described as being popular. From that we could make some inferences that if a killer exists they might be someone who would have a grudge against these types of bright and popular males. Also all of the alleged drownings took place in the Midwest and northern U.S. States indicating that the killer or potential killers may live in the Midwest. This theory opens the doors for many different theories; could this be the work of copy cats? Could it be one killer or some sort of cult across several organizations on various campuses?

As I said above the FBI has made their official statement that there is no evidence to believe that these deaths are in any way related so I do not intend to stir up any feelings of paranoia, just merely playing devil's advocate.   

I always believed that hate always came from ignorance, anger, and of course fear.  I also believe that it first starts off with ignorance, then fear, and eventually that fear becomes anger.  This web page explains clearly the start of it and the solution of it, but is it really possible to eleminate this type of hate after the world has been exposed to it for years now?  Are people willing to give up such stupidity?  What if they are not ignorant, what if they know better but yet their view remains colorless?  These are just some of the questions I hope you will keep in mind when you read this web page.

http://www.cahro.org/html/hate_crimes.html 

Have you ever seen the Oscar winning film, Milk? This article is about the man (Dan White) who murdered the San Francisco mayor, George Moscone, and the board supervisor, Harvey Milk. This case gained notoriety not only because the first openly gay official was murdered but also because many media agencies reported that White beat the murder conviction by using an insanity plea (stating that he ate too much junk food which made him insane). The media nicknamed this defense tactic as  the Twinkie Defense. 
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/psychology/insanity/7.html