Wednesday, April 03, 2013
CO: False "hate speech" allegation harms the accused. No consequences for the accuser?
Perjury might be considered for starters. But the "teen" who abused Gagne is probably black, so that gives him special protection
Hate crime charges against an Oak Creek Town Board member have been dropped. The Town Board member says he was the victim of a false accusation as a result of an altercation.
An Oak Creek Town Board member says he was the victim of a false accusation after hate crime charges stemming from a dispute were dropped.
According to Steamboat Today, Gagne was arrested on Sept. 24 following an altercation. He was charged with Class 5 felony bias-motivated crime, misdemeanor bias-motivated crime, misdemeanor third-degree assault and misdemeanor menacing.
Bernard Gagne Jr. said in a statement Thursday it was an easy accusation to make and a hard accusation to dismiss.
“I was the victim of a false accusation,” Gagne Jr. said. “Not just any accusation, but that of racism. It is such an easy accusation to make, but one of the most horrible accusations that can be brought against someone, especially when it is not at all true.”
According to authorities, a 17-year-old boy said he was threatened while leaving a store and alleged racial threats were made after Gagne hit him.
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11 comments:
This article is incomplete. Need to go through the source and to the original Steamboat Today article. Gagne plead to one count of harassment and doesn't deny an altercation took place. He says he lost his temper leaving it unclear as to whether or not he hit the kid.
Something to think about:
Why is it a more serious crime to assault a black, or gay, or female, than it is to assault someone who is not in one of those highly protected classes?
Is not the Constitution meant to protect us all, equally?
Are so-called "hate crime laws" nothing more than political pandering by the Left?
And if so, why do the people tolerate this glaring injustice?
Can one part of a society be called racist, while another part of that society is not, even though they routinely engage in clear racism?
And, how long can blatant inequity be tolerated before it sparks another civil war?
A.Levy - the point is that certain groups of people are singled out as "worthy" of attack just because they belong to particular group in the population (or are assumed to be), which is therefore a gratuitous attack with multiple possibilities if the Law didn't step in to discourage it somehow - hence "hate crimes", when random people for no other reason attack other random people because they regard them "socially inferior" ie. not equal. GET IT!
Anonymous 2:50,
It's obvious that you do not GET IT!. When random people attack for no reason other than a sense of social superiority, it is a crime. The motive behind the random attack should not make any difference at all. The act itself is punishable, and should be dealt with according to the severity of the attack and damage.
Our laws and punishments are supposed to discourage ALL aberrant behavior. You cannot prove that a person was motivated by hate. You can point to words and previous actions, but nothing can prove what was in the mind of the attacker at the moment he/she lashed out.
Why, then, should a perceived "Hate Crime" be punished more severely? All crime could arguably be labeled "Hate Crime". If a victim is beaten, the specific motive is only one aspect of the proof of guilt. The beating was wrong, so any motive short of self-defense would not be enough to exonerate the attacker.
Thank you Brian. You stated the point very well and saved me a bunch of text.
5:10 AM & 2:20 PM (aka Levy) are clearly unable to "GET IT" (there are none so blind ... etc.)
Obviously gratuitous attacks are MORE likely to occur, and therefore be MORE problematic for the law, when bigoted persons go around picking on RANDOM people perceived as belonging to groups regarded as socially "inferior" to THEM and/or LESS able to retaliate, than finding some other reason to attack an individual/s.
If the said two posters can't see that, I wonder if they might be such bigots!
Motive is not an aspect of guilt. The act against another person is what determines guilt. The victim is harmed reguardless of the motive.
And the victim/s are more likely to be more frequently attacked if they are perceived to be from an apparent "attack-worthy" group, and thus the law seeks to deter such more-frequent attacks and to avoid having more victims of such attacks, by imposing stricter penalties for such otherwise more likely attacks. It saves the tax-payer in police-time and court-time, and the potential victims trauma (that some smug posters here ignore because they believe they belong to some "superior" social group that may not be so victimized!).
Anonymous 2:54:
Please state the facts and numbers that prove your point. Where has it been studied and determined what these 'attack-worthy' groups are? Is there an official list of these groups? And if so, where can we find it? Who is responsible for identifying these groups?
Are these groups tiered in any way, such as it's more heinous if you attack Group A than Group C? How can I add another 'attack-worthy' group to this list? How can I get my group bumped up to Group A, ahead of the current Group A?
If you can't see how this is a bogus way of approaching the problem, then you've forgotten the idea of Justice For All. If someone from Group A is beaten and some random victim with no group affiliation is beaten, they both have the very same right to justice. No one is above the law, and no one is more deserving of justice than anyone else.
Wrong is Wrong. You hurt someone, you get punished. End of story.
As to your little comment about "smug" posters and "superior social group", tell me by what means you came to that conclusion? Do you know me in any way other than by my comment on a single, specific issue? Do you read minds based on text published over the internet? Or are you just trying to make yourself feel 'superior' by turning this into a personal attack?
7:48 AM (aka Brian) has foolishly revealed himself as a very smug person indeed, as well as painfully petty!
He is also a bit dim if he is unable to appreciate that it stands to reason (and would know if he lived in the real world) that there are more excuses and opporunities for cowardly bullies to pick on people whom they see as belonging to socially "inferior" groups, than for them to have an excuse to attack otherwise random individuals.
This brain-challenged Brian seems to think that such criminal attackers with more opportunities and more excuses (in their own sick minds) to attack people, should be regarded with more consideration for their "rights" (re penalties) than the "rights" of the more frequently attacked victims (frequent by virtue of "labelling" themselves as readily available victims to these victim-seeking bullies).
So if the victim-ignoring Brian doesn't understand these points now (apart even from the burden to the tax-payer that this all causes), I won't bother wasting more time trying to respond to his pig-headedness again.
I have always wondered how the equal protection clause sits with the special protections afforded to certain classes by these 'hate crime' type laws...
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