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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (5156)	2/8/2001 1:58:30 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

I'm sorry- I missed any mention of the guys doing this because of a racial motive. Did they just want to rob and kill people- or did they want to kill white people? If they muttered stuff about whitey must die, or gotta rape whitey's women and kill them- of course, it's a hate crime. If this just happened to be a pair of psychotic armed robbers/murderers who picked victims at random- it's not a hate crime. If the guy in Idaho had just been shot or tortured for cash, and not because he was gay- it's NOT a hate crime. You'd think you'd know this. It seems so clear.

To: TimF who wrote (5156)	2/8/2001 2:27:15 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 82486

I'll give it a try. Unfortunately, there are so many brutal murders that they just aren't newsworthy any more. For a murder to make the news outside the local area there has to be something unusual or interesting about it. For example, a second deaf student was killed the other day in the same dormitory at Galludet University (for the deaf) in Washington. I don't know if that got national coverage or not, but I'll bet it got some because it has a twist. In today's Post is the story of a man who was murdered because he wouldn't agree to a fight between his pit bull and that of the alleged murderer. That might have a sufficient twist to get national attention. Hard to say what editors will do. The hate crimes mentioned in this article got national attention because they were particularly ugly hate crimes. In these two cases, the styles of killing were unusual enough that they might have gotten national attention were they not hate crimes. But I think that hate crimes are in and of themselves sufficiently newsworthy to warrant national attention. We've become accustomed to murder for personal gain, vengeance and just plain orneriness, sad to say. We aren't yet inured to hate crimes, thankfully, so they're news. At least for now. I think the author may be reacting to some public interest in giving hate crimes special penalties. I don't agree with the government giving special weight to hate as a motive, but I don't see any problem with editors considering hate crimes more newsworthy. Karen