Jose Luis Magana
Thousands of people march around the Justice Department in Washington, Friday, Nov. 16, 2007, during the "March Against Hate Crimes" to protest hate crime issues. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Thousands of people march around the Justice Department in Washington, Friday, Nov. 16, 2007, during the "March Against Hate Crimes" to protest hate crime issues. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The escalation started years ago, when three caucasian men dragged a black man to his death in Texas. Now, we have nooses hanging all over America, and primarily the South, all over again. At least this time the nooses aren't around necks, but, if these seemingly nuisance 'misdemeanors' aren't stopped by punishment of law including mandatory sentences behind bars stipulating exhibition of 'nooses in protest' is nothing short of a hate crime, felony and terroristic threat by anyone exhibiting it we may be looking at lynching all over again. Laws of "Terroristic Threats" were around long before September 11, 2001
MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Hate crime incidents in the United States rose last year by nearly 8 percent, the FBI reported Monday, as racial prejudice continued to account for more than half the reported instances.
Police across the nation reported 7,722 criminal incidents in 2006 targeting victims or property as a result of bias against a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic or national origin or physical or mental disability. That was up 7.8 percent from the 7,163 incidents reported in 2005.
Although the noose incidents and beatings among students at Jena, La., high school occurred in the last half of 2006, they were not included in the report. Only 12,600 of the nation's more than 17,000 local, county, state and federal police agencies participated in the hate crime reporting program in 2006 and neither Jena nor LaSalle Parish, in which the town is located, were among the agencies reporting.
Nevertheless, the Jena incidents, and a rash of subsequent noose incidents around the country, have spawned civil rights protests in Louisiana and last week at Justice Department headquarters here. The department said it investigated the incident but decided not to prosecute because the federal government does not typically bring hate crime charges against juveniles....
