Was this a Hate Crime?

When police arrived at a rickety mobile home in Big Creek, West Virginia on September 8^th, they found something that shocked the community. Megan Williams a 20-year-old black woman was being held hostage by 24-year-old Bobby Brewster, his 49-year-old mother Frankie Brewster, and four other suspects.

According to authorities, Ms. Williams had been kidnapped, tortured and raped for more than a week by this group of six whites.

The three men and three women, who held her captive allegedly beat, stabbed and sexually assaulted the Williams while calling her a "nigger."

Logan County prosecutors say they have not ruled out hate-crimes charges but are focusing on the counts already filed, including kidnapping and sexual assault which have tougher maximum sentences. Federal prosecutors, meanwhile, have not sought civil-rights charges and on September 12^th U.S. Attorney Charles Miller announced that his office will not seek federal charges in the case.

Miller contends that because of the serious nature of the pending charges, both in the “factual allegations and in the potential penalties if the defendants are convicted” his office believes that “it is appropriate to defer to the Logan County Prosecutor in pursuing the state charges against the defendants.”

On Thursday September 13^th representatives of several black churches appealed to prosecutors to pursue hate-crime or civil-rights charges against the six accused.

This seems like the definition of a hate crime to me. Over the course of several days, six racial epithet-spouting white suspects poured hot water over, choked with a cable and used a knife to cut the ankles of one defenseless black woman. The accused kidnappers humiliated and demeaned Ms. Miller, even forcing her to drink from a toilet, lick blood and eat rat droppings and dog feces.

Evidently, the victim and the accused knew each other prior to the kidnapping. The New York Times reported that on July 18, officers responded to a 911 call concerning a domestic disturbance at the mobile home, where Mr. Brewster, lives with his mother. Court documents do not make clear who called the police, but when they arrived, the papers say, they asked Mr. Brewster about the young woman, and he said he had not seen her in several days. Upon searching the premises, though, the officers found her behind the trailer, and she told them she was hiding from Mr. Brewster and his mother. The complaint says the police determined that he had “verbally threatened and physically hit” her.

This has led some observers to speculate that this brutality was not motivated by hate. But Logan County Prosecutor Brian Abraham described the case differently. "There is no doubt, from what I've seen, that race was a contributing factor," he said. "Whether it was the sole motivating factor or a motivating factor, I want to wait until we get all the evidence in to this office before I make that determination."

Carmen Williams, the victim’s mother decided to go public in releasing her daughter's name so that other people could see what was done to her daughter. 

Still others have suggested that the crime was not a federal hate crime because the suspects did not interfere with a federal right such as the right to vote. This rationale seems specious as well. Anyone who kidnaps another individual is necessarily interfering with their right to movement and travel.

Finally some have said that the accused would face tougher sentences if convicted of the state crimes with which they will be charged. While I am sympathetic to that argument it appears miss the point of hate crimes laws and all too often is simply not the case, especially in cases of murder and other serious violent crimes. Hate crimes laws do not replace existing state or federal laws--they provide an additional basis for charges against the accused. In these cases, it serves to express our outrage over the crimes motivated by prejudice and provide heightened penalties for those who commit such crimes.

So again I ask, was this a hate crime?