All crimes could be catagorized hate crimes
While it remains unclear if hate crime charges will be filed against the six white suspects in the Logan County torture case, criminology experts say the incident should at least be reported to the FBI as a bias crime.
All law enforcement agencies in the country are required to report bias crimes quarterly for the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. The bureau compiles an annual publication of hate crime statistics, which presents data regarding incidents motivated in whole or in part by bias against a victim’s race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or disability.
Six known criminals from Logan County — Frankie Brewster, Bobby Brewster, Danny Combs, George Messer, Karen Burton and Alisha Burton — are facing charges of kidnapping, sexual assault and malicious wounding after they tortured and held 20-year-old Megan Williams against her will for at least a week.
I have been watching this case pretty closely. It is one of the cases that I can’t turn away from. I know more people die every day elsewhere so I can’t quantify it as the worst crime for that day or even that month around the world but it is one that just mystifies me. It is beyond my scope to understand how 6 unrelated individuals (yes, I know two pairs are related but the 6 as a whole are not all related to each other) could possibly do something so horrendous without any of them stopping and saying enough. I have friends but I can tell you right now if one of them was doing something heinous I would be on my cell calling 911 before they could get out any explanation not to mention I wouldn’t be party to it. I would expect the exact same from them if I was doing something horrific. So, this one just is beyond me.
As for whether they charge them with a hate crime along with the torture, kidnapping, etc etc, I just don’t care. They are all hate crimes if you think about it. Yes, there were racial slurs thrown during her captivity and maybe the reason the six did it was because she was black but I still don’t see why it matters if it is charged as a hate crime or not. I tend to agree with the prosecutor who says that they have a very good case for the stronger charges and that throwing in ‘hate crime’ could muddy the waters. I sure don’t think it is any less of a horrific crime if they add the charge and I don’t think anyone else does either.
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