Posted on 09/11/2003 10:46:45 AM PDT by oldoverholt
Ruth Holladay In this hate crime, truth is in the eye of the beholder
September 11, 2003
Will the real hate crime please stand up? A waitress at a Southeastside country bar is bopped by a beer bottle allegedly thrown by an angry man.
Her head is cut; it takes six stitches to close the wound. Before she was struck, the man and his buddies, according to witnesses, had been hassling women on the dance floor -- touching them against their wishes. That prompted a request from the bouncer that they leave. The bottle that hit the waitress was supposedly thrown by one of them as they departed.
Was this beer-throwing incident a hate crime against women?
In the same bar -- but from a different perspective -- three Hispanic men say they were approached by a patron who allegedly said, "We hate (expletive) Mexicans, get the (expletive) out."
After they were forced outside by bouncers and customers, they say, some men grabbed baseball bats and chased them down the street, beating them. Two Hispanics were cut and bruised; one even had his arm broken.
Was this baseball-wielding attack a hate crime against Hispanics?
Determining what constitutes such an offense is subjective and up to the discretion of the police officer, says Indianapolis Police Department spokesman Sgt. Steve Staletovich. But committing a hate crime is no trifling matter.
It's a federal crime, and whenever an officer checks off "bias" as part of the official crime report, the information is fed into a national crime database. This year, 11 hate crimes have been cited in Marion County, including the one Saturday at the ill-named King of Clubs bar, 5478 Brookville Road.
Investigating officer Patrolman Jose A. Torres Sr. made his thinking clear in the police report. He arrived at the bar after a report of street fighting. A bouncer told him, he wrote in his report, that "some 'Mexicans' that were in the bar, threw a beer bottle at a waitress, hitting her in the forehead, causing injury and started a fight in the bar."
When Torres asked who and where the waitress was, he says witnesses were unable to give him her name or say which hospital she'd been taken to. Nor did they call 911, he was told.
Club manager Thomas Combs says it seemed as if the officer dismissed this side of the story. "He acted like he didn't believe me," says Combs, who has been at King of Clubs seven months.
But the waitress is a real victim -- of somebody. She is Cristy Tirotta, and she was stitched up for a 6-inch laceration at Community Hospital East at 3 a.m. Saturday, according to her medical report. "She was back at work the next day," says Combs. "She is a real sweetheart."
She is not, however, a hate crime victim, according to the investigation.
This is not an effort to diminish what happened to Roman Hernandez and his brother Aeliodoro Hernandez, the two injured Hispanics. Their injuries are also real. One witness says what happened to them was horrifying.
That witness is a 34-year-old woman who happened to be driving alone by the club in her boyfriend's Honda Accord. She does not want her name in print, but she did talk Wednesday about her impressions. Her boyfriend, Mark R. Scott, 32, also went on the record -- out of justifiable pride in his girlfriend's courage.
His Good Samaritan girlfriend, who rescued the men from the mob, says she does not know whether a hate crime was committed. But she will never forget the fear in the faces of the men she helped.
The windows of the Honda were also broken by baseball bats. So far, the federal government has exempted Hondas from the hate-crime category.
Ruth Holladay's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. You can reach her at 1-317-444-6405 or via e-mail at ruth.holladay@indystar.com
In California the "hate crime" means that you can get 2 or even 3 times the jail sentence!! Nothing to laugh at. When in fact all crimes are hate crimes this makes certain minorities a protected class -- while almost no whites are victims.
I wonder how bad this will get before we regain common sense??
Or, in your opinion, their Hispanis origin qualifies them for immediate death?
A bottle is indeed a dangerous weapon, and they should not have used it. I suspect, however, that they throwed it at their attackers, not the waitress.
That's what the people in the bar say happened. Bouncers tend to lie to make their violent acts look innocent. The other side is just as likely. At the end of the day, probably everyone involved is at least a little guilty (probably not the girl who got hit, though).
Sounds about right. Everyone involved wants to make themselves out to be the innocent ones, which is about par for the course.
These Mexicans were making asses out of themselves literally assaulting the women if the report is accurate. The girls friends did not apprecate that kind of activity and objected in some way.
The Mexicans, oops, Hispanics, were angry at being removed and threw the bottle hitting a girl.
It does sound like they may have deserved the beating they got. Of course the Hispanic officer showed no prejudice at all.
Re the term "attackers": the bouncers are representatives of the owner of the bar. Once they tell you to leave, you must leave. It's private property.
Once they declined to leave, it's "defiant trespass", a crime. At this point, the representative of the property owner may use force to eject the trespassers. Using force to resist, however, is assault -- another crime. Assaulting someone with a potentially-deadly weapon (the beer bottle) is an even more serious crime. You start seeing the hole they're digging themselves into?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.