Hate crimes: Is enforcement colorblind?

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Are blacks ever prosecuted for hate crimes?

Readers and callers have been asking this question in one form or another since Fat Tuesday. Some ask it rhetorically, angry at what they perceive as a politically correct double standard. Others ask with genuine curiosity.

More than a month after Mardi Gras rocked the city, Seattle police this week asked prosecutors to consider a hate-crime charge against one black teen, Khalid Adams, who is accused of beating up and robbing whites during the Mardi Gras celebration. Adams told investigators he believed he was in the middle of a "racial war."

Three-quarters of the Fat Tuesday suspects are black. The most violent images caught on videotape are of blacks beating whites. And the only fatality was a young white man whose killer, police say, was a young black man.

Many witnesses, and a number of victims, argue that the Fat Tuesday melee was born of racial animosity. "They should all be charged with hate crimes," said Allison Wilson, 21, of Renton, who along with her husband was beaten that night.

And many whites voiced this underlying suspicion: If the reverse had happened - whites beating blacks - the police and media would be quicker to judge.

"When young white males commit race crimes, the powers that be rightly express outrage," a Seattle man, who asked not to be identified publicly, wrote The Times about Fat Tuesday coverage. "But the response to these hate crimes committed by young black males ... how slow it is, how mamby-pamby, how fearful and timid."

But police and prosecutors must abide by a strict legal definition of "hate crime." And that definition does not always correlate with public perception.

Motive for acts is key

Washington's hate-crime law falls within the state's malicious-harassment statute. Harming or harassing someone because of that person's race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender or disability constitutes malicious harassment, or a hate crime.

The key words are "because of." If I punch you in the nose, it's simple assault, a misdemeanor. But if I punch you in the nose because of your race or gender, it's a hate crime, a felony.

Police say evidence is mounting that at least some of the Fat Tuesday suspects chose their victims because of race, but many appear to have been solely interested in cracking heads, and most of the heads at Fat Tuesday happened to be white. And even if the violence was racially motivated, prosecutors must be able to prove it in court.

"It's much easier to prove an action happened - you hit me in the face - than to prove a person's state of mind at the time of the crime," said Lis Wiehl, a law professor at the University of Washington.

Low-ranking felony

The difficulty of proving racial hatred makes hate crimes hard to prosecute. Even if police and prosecutors believe racism motivated a crime, they must often settle for a lesser charge for lack of proof.

The reverse also happens: If police and prosecutors have evidence to prove a more severe crime than malicious harassment, they usually choose the more serious charge and forgo the hate label.

Society attaches more stigma to a hate crime, but as felonies go, malicious harassment ranks relatively low.

It is a class-C felony, which carries a three- to nine-month sentence for a first-time offender. By comparison, first-degree robbery carries a 31- to 41-month sentence, and first-degree assault 93 to 123 months.

In Washington, a malicious-harassment charge cannot augment another charge. A racist thug, for example, can be charged with multiple crimes stemming from the same incident, but he cannot be sentenced for, say, both assault and malicious harassment.

It's one or the other, and "prosecutors are likely to choose the most serious offense that they think the evidence will support," said UW criminal-law professor John Junker.

Adams, the 17-year-old suspect for whom Seattle police are recommending a hate-crime charge, also faces charges of first-degree robbery and indecent liberties (for allegedly stripping and groping a woman). Of the three charges, first-degree robbery carries the stiffest sentence.

Some states allow sentences to be augmented. In New Jersey, for example, a prison sentence for assault can be lengthened if it can be proved that racial hatred motivated the attack.

Varied laws, perceptions

Forty states and the federal government have versions of hate-crime laws, but there is little uniformity. It makes for a helter-skelter picture and does not encourage easy dialogue on a touchy, complex issue.

Now mix in public perceptions. Two high-profile cases, the 1998 murders of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming and James Byrd in Texas, are cited as prime examples of brutal hate crimes. But neither state has a hate-crime law.

Racial perceptions further cloud the picture. The media and police are often criticized for downplaying stories of violent crimes committed by blacks against whites.

David Horowitz, the liberal-turned-conservative columnist, complains about a long list of crimes committed by blacks against whites - crimes every bit as hateful and gruesome as those against Shepard, 21, a gay white man beaten to death by two whites, and Byrd, 49, a black dragged to death behind a truck driven by three whites - that have not received national attention.

Horowitz blames civil-rights groups for selective compassion, and liberal politicians and media for skewed coverage. A number of Seattle-area residents have echoed that sentiment.

Regarding The Seattle Times' initial coverage of the Fat Tuesday violence, letter-writer Roger Crane said:

"You made no mention of the respective races of the victims and suspects. I put it to you that if the authorities had reported the victims black and the suspects white, then The Times would have jumped all over that fact. I have a problem with that. Do you?"

What the numbers say

So are blacks ever accused of hate crimes? The statistics, both local and national, say yes.

According to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, from 1991 to 1999, blacks, who make up 3 percent of the state population, were suspects in 19 percent of all hate crimes in the state. There were 249 incidents reported statewide in 1999, the most recent year with complete records.

In King County during the same period, blacks, who make up 5 percent of the population, were suspects in 22 percent of the county's hate crimes.

In Seattle, from 1993 through 2000, police identified 216 blacks, 202 whites and 56 Asians as suspects in hate crimes.

According to the latest figures, blacks make up 8 percent, whites 68 percent and Asians and Pacific Islanders 13 percent of Seattle's population.

The FBI's crime statistics for 1999 show that a higher percentage of blacks than whites are charged with race-based hate crimes, and a black person is 1-1/2 times more likely to be arrested for a hate crime than a white.

Agencies vary in their methods of collecting data. And the true number of hate crimes by all races will never be known.

These statistics provide, at best, a rough picture.

Most frequent victims black

But while the stats consistently indicate blacks commit a disproportionate number of hate crimes, police on all levels also consistently report that blacks are by far the most frequent victims of hate crime.

Between 30 and 40 percent of all hate crimes, locally and nationally, are committed against blacks, and the vast majority of the suspects in these crimes are white.

This, at least for some, justifies the way hate crimes are addressed by police and media.

"Seventy percent of America is white. Institutional power is still in the hands of whites. We are still a white country, and blacks in order to survive are forced to live in a white world," said Jack Levin, a criminology professor at Northeastern University and co-author of "Hate Crimes: The Rising Tide of Bigotry and Bloodshed."

Levin points out that the U.S. Supreme Court case that gave constitutionality to hate-crime laws on a federal level was Todd Mitchell vs. the State of Wisconsin in 1993, a case in which the attackers were black and the victim white.

Indeed, to suggest that law enforcement turns a blind eye to black hate crime makes some crime experts cringe.

Last summer, Seattle witnessed a number of "wilding" incidents in which black youths appeared to be targeting whites in the Belltown area.

One incident was caught on videotape and widely broadcast. Some publicly wondered why those youths were not charged with hate crimes.

The victims had been beaten up and robbed. In the more serious attacks, the assailants were eventually charged with assault or robbery, which carried stiffer penalties.

So while not prosecuted for hate crimes, and not yoked with the added stigma of being racist, the perpetrators were sentenced for more serious offenses.

Junker, the UW law professor, reminds people of the stark fact of black incarceration in the United States.

One in eight black males between ages 18 and 24 is behind bars.

Said Junker: "Given that blacks are so disproportionately represented in our prison system, I find it a little ironic to hear people complain that the criminal-justice system is soft on black people."

Alex Tizon can be reached at 206- 464-2216 or atizon@seattletimes.com.