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To: longnshort who wrote (650933)	4/11/2012 12:43:00 AM
From: joseffy	Respond to of 1582262

Baltimore Police chief: Downtown beating not a hate crime Police chief warns of racial tensions over a crime he says was 'drunken opportunistic criminality' By Justin Fenton, The Baltimore Sun April 10, 2012 baltimoresun.com Baltimore's top cop warned Tuesday against "race-baiting" amid rising tensions across the nation, citing the Trayvon Martin case and cautioning that a video generating outrage on the Internet of a tourist being beaten and stripped in downtown Baltimore does not appear to depict a hate crime. Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III, appearing on WBAL's "The C4 Show," said the attack on a 31-year-old white man from Arlington, Va., appears to be nothing beyond "drunken opportunistic criminality." The comment came in response to a caller who said that if the victim had been black and the assailants white, civil rights leaders would be descending on Baltimore and the attackers would be charged with a hate crime. Bealefeld, the white police commissioner in majority-black Baltimore, warned against "fear-mongering." "There's no doubt it's a crime," he said. "We need to vigorously hold criminals accountable, and we have to be careful not to be pulled into this race-baiting. "I want to caution people, because I think there will be ample national noise as we progress through the Trayvon Martin and the [Oklahoma shooting] cases," Bealefeld said. "As these things get going, I will urge caution of Baltimoreans to distinguish between criminality and racially motivated crime." Hate-crime charges are relatively rare and used as a sentencing enhancement for underlying crimes, and local law enforcement officials say they require evidence that race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation or disability was the motivation in the attack. The Baltimore beating video went viral after first being uploaded to social media and popular shock video websites. It showed a seemingly disoriented white man standing with a group of young black people. As a woman danced against the victim, someone took an item from his pocket. When he moved to recover the item, he was punched in the face and fell to the pavement. The victim was then stripped of his clothing by laughing assailants. Police said initially that they did not have a report on the incident. Then, with the video gaining wide attention, police were able to connect the incident to a report taken March 19 from a man who said he was assaulted and robbed of a watch, car keys and cellphone but could not remember where the attack occurred. Outraged viewers of the video tracked social media to pinpoint an apparent suspect, who had discussed the incident on his Twitter account before shutting it down. A call to the man's phone indicated his voicemail might have been hacked, with a message from someone claiming to be the suspect and boasting of the attack. No charges have been filed against the man — identified in social media accounts as a 20-year-old from Rosedale — but Bealefeld said the investigation is continuing. "I'm confident [detectives] are following procedures, dotting i's, crossing t's, and working with the state's attorney's office to develop a good, solid prosecutable case and the evidence we need," Bealefeld said. Of the efforts by citizens to track down the suspect, Bealefeld said in the radio interview: "I thought they were very creative in some of the things they did, but there's a difference between what private citizens do and what detectives do in the legal construct of developing a case." Bealefeld also addressed recent reports that officers had gone into a school to handcuff and arrest a group of 8- and 9-year-olds who were charged with assaulting classmates off school property. The American Civil Liberties Union said police had overstepped their bounds, and relatives of the juveniles said the arrests were mishandled. Bealefeld said the arrests "have raised a number of questions inside the Police Department that we're working through. I hope people have confidence in us that if we made mistakes, we're going to address that and work to avoid it." Related Internet shock video helps Baltimore police find victim, possible suspect Baltimore beating video: Police, prosecutors still investigating Viral video update: Felon, 40, charged in Howard school assault Worldstarhiphop.com makes a name for itself with violent viral videos Video of after-school fight at Long Reach High School goes viral Baltimore Crime Beat blog Topics Shootings Computer Crime Minority Groups See more topics »

To: longnshort who wrote (650933)	4/11/2012 1:04:11 AM
From: joseffy	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1582262

Another Dangerous Obama Idiot: State Official Says Religion Is Not Driving Extremist Violence in Nigeria – After Islamists Slaughter 39 Christians by Jim Hoft Tuesday, April 10, 2012 thegatewaypundit.com Where do they find these nutjobs? Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson told an audience on Monday that religion is not driving the extremist violence in Nigeria after the Islamist group Boko Haram took credit for slaughering 39 Christians at Easter services on Sunday. These clowns will get us all killed. CNS News has the clip. Here is the entire video from yesterday’s discussion: CNS News reported on the nonsensical speech. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson said Monday that “religion is not driving extremist violence” in Nigeria–just one day after a Christian church conducting an Easter service was targeted by a car bombing that left 39 dead. Similarly, on Christmas Day, the Nigerian Islamist terrorist group, Boko Haram, attacked a Catholic church in that country, killing more than 40 people. “I want to take this opportunity to stress one key point and that is that religion is not driving extremist violence either in Jos or northern Nigeria,” Assistant Secretary of State Carson said Monday at a forum on U.S. policy toward Nigeria held at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. The Islamist group Boko Haram took credit for the attack. They declared war on Christians in December. What is Johnnie Carson not getting? Nigerian security personnel inspect the mangled remains of bomb-laden car that exploded on April 8, 2012 in northern city of Kaduna, killing at least 20 people. In fresh violence in Nigeria, Islamists shot dead a seven-year-old girl during a failed attempt to kill her policeman father hours after group members killed three in a separate raid, the army and police said. ( AFP )