You have surely heard that three young Palestinian-Americans, Kinnan Abdalhamid, Hisham Awartani, and Tahseen Ali Ahmad, were shot on November 25 in Burlington, Vermont. Two of the injured were American citizens; the other a legal resident. The alleged shooter, Jason Eaton, was captured and appears to be mentally ill. From the NYT:
They were shot and wounded on Saturday by a white man with a handgun while they were walking near the University of Vermont, the police said. Two of the victims were wearing Palestinian kaffiyehs, a traditional headdress.
The young men told family members they were speaking a hybrid of English and Arabic before the man shot at them four times without saying anything before the attack, according to a family spokeswoman.
Two of the victims were in stable condition, the authorities said. The third sustained much more serious injuries.
The one with serious injuries was shot in the spine, and may never walk again. This is a terrible attack, and, while we can be grateful that nobody was killed, losing your ability to walk is horrible. The shooter has been charged with second-degree murder, and, if he’s guilty, which seems likely, will be spending a long time in either prison or a mental hospital.
So far the cops haven’t found any evidence that Eaton was motivated by anti-Muslim sentiments, and yet the media is full of pronouncements that it must have been a hate crime. After all, it was three Palestinians speaking Arabic and wearing kaffiyehs.
It’s not hard to imagine that both Palestinian-Americans and the mainstream media really want Eaton to have been “Islamophobic,” as this fits the desired narrative, which is that Muslims are widely subject to Islamophobia in America, and that has murderous consequences.
Of course there is bigotry in America, bigotry against both Muslims and Jews, but that doesn’t lead to the conclusion that any Jew or Muslim who is victim of a crime was a victim because of his or her religion. That has to be found out via investigation, which could lead to “hate crime” charges. (As I’ve said, I’m still conflicted about we should even have the category of “hate crime”, since many other motivations are reprehensible; but sussing out why a criminal did what he did is important if you think that punishment should involve rehabilitation.)
At any rate, I have seen nothing in the press decrying the rush to judgement against Eaton, who is being touted as a murderous Islamophobe without any evidence. Here’s some stuff from the news showing this rush:
From the NYT, in an editorial which is all about the likelihood that this was an anti-Muslim hate crime (my bolding)
tThe authorities have not yet added a hate-crime enhancement to the charges against Mr. Eaton, who moved to the neighborhood a few months ago and has struggled with depression, according to his mother. Still it’s hard to ignore the current atmosphere of tension and vitriol surrounding the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, which has led to clashes and hate incidents around the country.
Note the devious way that the author connects the shootings with the war, and presumably with “Islamophobia”.
From NBC News:
The mother of one of the Palestinian American college students shot on the street near the University of Vermont has no doubt that the men were targeted and says the shooting should absolutely be treated as a hate crime.
. . .“There is no doubt,” she said. “It just defies logic. Why else would it be? … If they were not wearing the kaffiyeh. … If they were not speaking Arabic.”
She said she would be disappointed if the violence were not treated as a hate crime. “It would be sorely disappointing only because the facts are so obvious,” Tamimi said.
From the BBC, the mother of another of the injured men:
The mother of Mr Awartani, who is the most seriously injured out of the three with a bullet lodged in his spine, told the BBC she believed the attack was a hate crime.
“This man did not accept people who were different from him. And he wanted to destroy that,” said Elizabeth Price, who headed back to Vermont after the shooting, from her home in the West Bank.
From the Associated Press:
“Based on the information that is available, it appears this crime might have been motivated by the victims’ identity and, if that is true, it would be appropriate to seek the hate crimes enhancement,” [ACLU of Vermont Advocacy Director Falko] Schilling said, adding that the motive behind the shooting will be critical in determining whether this is treated as a hate crime.
Still, Chittenden County State’s attorney Sarah George told reporters on Monday that the state doesn’t “yet have evidence to support a hate crime enhancement,” which under Vermont law must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
“I do want to be clear that there is no question this was a hateful act,” she said.
This conflates a “hateful act” with a “hate crime”; George can’t resist implying that this may indeed have been a hate crime. But if the shooter was mentally ill, he may not have even been filled with hate, but with some twisted thoughts that we can’t fathom.
From Reuters:
Families of the victims issued a joint statement earlier in the day urging authorities to investigate the shooting as a hate crime, as did the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a U.S.-based advocacy group.
“The surge in anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian sentiment we are experiencing is unprecedented, and this is another example of that hate turning violent,” ADC National Executive Director Abed Ayoub said.
Again, the ADC is assuming that the crime stemmed from hatred of Arabs and Palestinians. Thje tweet below that says the ADC had “reason to believe” it was a hate crime. Is that because the victims were wearing Palestinian scarves and speaking Arabic?
This morning, ADC was contacted about the shooting, after reviewing the information, we have reason to believe that the shooting was motivated by the three vitims being Arab.
The three victims were wearing a Kuffiyeh and speaking Arabic. A man shouted and harassed the victims, pic.twitter.com/b8yoDvK8Nv
— ADC National (@adc) November 26, 2023
Here is a proper response (in Vox): a call to determine if it was indeed a hate crime:
CAIR [the council on American-Islamic Relations] is among the groups that have called on law enforcement to review whether bias played a role in the college students’ shootings in Vermont. “We encourage law enforcement to file state and federal hate crime charges if the evidence confirms that anti-Palestinian racism motivated this attack,” the organization’s executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement.
You can find many similar statements implying that this surely was a hate crime, but I’ll leave you to search.
Now it’s understandable that the mothers of the injured men would want to find a motive, as crimes without known motives are especially disturbing to friends and relatives of victims. But the mainstream media has a responsibility to be, well, responsible, and remind us all that there is as of yet no evidence that Eaton was motivated by anti-Muslim bigotry. The search is on by both local police and the feds, but so far all we know is that Eaton has a history of depression and had been reported to the police for harassing an ex-girlfriend. If -he was Islamophobic, it seems that we would know by now.
It’s curious to me that the MSM has a narrative that seems to want this to be an Islamophobic hate crime. Wouldn’t it be better if it wasn’t one, so that we’d have less violent anti-Muslim bigotry than we thought? But we also know that the liberal MSM is pro-Palestinian, and it may be in their interest to push the idea of pervasive anti-Muslim bigotry in America. (It’s similar to when papers like the NYT credulously reported that a hospital was destroyed by an Israeli bomb when, in fact, it was hit by an Islamic Jihad rocket gone astray).
Let’s just wait, shall we, for the evidence about Eaton’s motives to come out, if it can be found.
Vis-à-vis hate crimes, I see four reasons to punish those who violate the law, as far as I can see
- Deterrence
- Sequestration: keeping bad guys off the streets
- Reformation of the criminal
- Retribution
I’m opposed to retributive punishment as it presupposes that the criminal had a choice, and I’m a hard determinist who doesn’t believe a criminal could have chosen not to commit the crime. Gregg Caruso, also a hard determinist, thinks that deterrence is not a valid reason for punishment, either, because it violates Kantian morality by using a person to affect others. (I disagree.) I
f someone is determined to have committed a crime out of racial or ethnic hatred, that would affect the way they should be reformed, but if having an extra-long sentence is supposed to deter others from bigotry, then we need to know if that deterrence really works. (We already have evidence that capital punishment does not deter murder.) I suspect that the “hate crime” charge does not deter bigots, either.
Right now, I’m thinking that juries or judges should determine whether hatred was a motive, but shouldn’t necessarily impose to longer sentences unless those longer sentences act as a deterrent. Thus finding out the motive is important in reforming a criminal, but not necessarily in deciding whether to give him a longer sentence.
Others may feel differently from me about hate crimes, and that’s fine: just weigh in in the comments below. But what’s not at issue is whether Eaton shot the men out of anti-Muslim hatred, for the answer to that is “we don’t know yet, and maybe never will.”
This is depressing, so a thought experiment to help me out (at least) is :
If my friends and I were walking around with balaclavas and practicing our Arabic and got shot, would that be a “hate crime” or just a “crime”?
I mean, balaclavas are great for keeping warm! But “perception is everything”, some say.
Sort of thing. I do not know the answer to the topic – but it is unclear how anyone else can know the answer. 12 jurors even – is this the objective? Subversion of jurors?
I speculate!
We can’t answer the question.
Hate crimes are about the motives of the perpetrator. If the perpetrator wanted to kill all Muslims and shot you by mistake because he thought you were a Muslim, it’s still a hate crime.
It’s not magically not a hate crime just because he made a mistake.
How about if the shooter just didn’t like a certain intersectionality of identities, but it wasn’t full hate?
I’m asking rhetorically, mostly – but I can imagine that appearing in court.
Smashing the windows of an ex-spouse’s house is vandalism, with one perpetrator and one victim; smashing the windows of a church, if done with the intent of intimidating the entire congregation or religious community, is also vandalism, but there are many more victims — the vandal intended to terrify and humiliate all of them. So a “hate crime” is more serious because there are more victims.
What about smashing the windows of a Jewish person’s house because he/she is Jewish. One victim. Is that NOT a “hate crime”? Same with beating up one Muslims or beating up a grup of Muslims.
Is it the number of “victims” that determine what a hate crime is?
Yes it is a hate crime because the intent is to intimidate all Jews.
No. It’s the motive that determines if it is a hate crime. If the intent was to target one person because you had something against that one person, or a group (of actual people, not a whole class) because you had something against that particular group, then it’s not a hate crime. If the intent is to attack a person or group of people in order to generate fear in a class to which they belonged, then, yes, it’s a hate crime.
So in this case, if the three people in question had mocked the attacker earlier in the day and he wanted to get back at them, or even if he just wanted to kill some people and they were the ones unfortunate enough to cross his path, not a hate crime. If however, he had gone out with intent of killing Muslims, and these were the first three people who looked like Muslims he came across, then yes, a hate crime.
I think that vandalism is if I smash some random windows, and if they are of my ex-spouse, this is something more serious – domestic violence, maybe?
MSM
It’s all about selling/clicks
And headlines do that!
Few editors will risk truth vs $$$
That’s the way it is today
Read Fox headlines it is like picking up a tabloid at grocery checkout
There seems to be a strong interest in the media to want to decry Islamophobia, whether the evidence is there or not. It should be up to the courts to figure this out. In this particular case, the perpetrator—who may be mentally ill—might very well have acted against the victims based on their distinctive clothing and speech, but even this does not prove a hate crime.
In recent months, a professor at Vermont State University was shot dead, as were professors at the University of Arizona and the University of North Carolina. In each case, the victims were apparently chosen because of their academic identity. From this, a further deduction might be that the shootings represent hatred against academia due to the “current atmosphere of tension and vitriol” in regard to university DEI offices. We can probably expect a pronouncement to this effect from the National Association of Diversity Officers.
Wasn’t a lady Rabbi stabbed to death a few weeks ago in Detroit?
I think that event has disappeared without much national/international discussion as to motives, even perpetrator.
Inconvenient victim?
Indeed. And I’ve yet to see “progressives” denounce the 7 October terrorist attacks as a hate crime or war crime.
I read that it was supposedly domestic violence.
What’s the main reason for harsher punishment for “hate” crimes?
It is virtue signalling. The people pushing such laws want to signal what good people they are and how much they deplore such crimes.
True indeed, and very lamentable! The Irish government would seem determined, after the recent troubles in Dublin, to implement extremely draconian legislation in order to criminalize so-called “hate-speech”, equally as dubious a concept as “hate-crimes”.
It is society saying that that the intent behind a crime is unacceptable to society. It is why a person spray painting a happy face on a synagogue is punished less than a person spray painting a swastika. The former is juvenile vandalism, the latter an expression of hate towards a specific group in society. That distinction can’t be dismissed as virtue signally.
I think, however, that this severity is necessary because hate crimes tend to brew in groups that do not see them as crimes at all. E.g. in my country, a lot of Roma criminals and their families think that there is nothing wrong with robbing and beating whites.
I think, with reluctance, that retribution is a valid part of the punishment for a crime. Like it or not, people want to feel that the perpetrator suffers for the crime, and I think that people’s acceptance of the justice system, on which civilisation depends, depends on them seeing an element of retribution.
But there are working systems of justice in which retribution plays no role; e.g. in Norway. I think the way around this is to eliminate the desire for retribution (perhaps by spreading determinism!), rather than catering to it. It’s retribution, after all, that has led to the death penalty.
But my point is that the people of Norway might accept the system because they feel that imprisonment involves an element of retribution.
A desire for retribution seems to me a innate part of our nature as social animals, in the same way that empathy is. This then becomes one of the primary elements of any human justice system, even when we pretend to be above such desires and hide the satisfaction we feel when a criminal is punished for what we claim is only “deterrence”. The ideas of determinism only makes matters more absurd. The horrific actions of Hamas on Oct 7 was carried out by those “who had no choice” and our desire to destroy Hamas is only intended as a deterrent to others who might do the same. As the British say of such an explanation… “pull the other one”
No, they want anti-Muslim bigotry because it confirms their world view that capitalism (read democracy, read the United States) is systemically racist. They don’t just want it, they expect it and assume it. Notice how some crimes disappear from the news when the culprit turns out to be on the rainbow spectrum, like the Nashville school shooting?
I’m not sure who you consider to be the constituents of the ‘main stream media’ but it seems odd to me that you seem to think they are collectively anti-capitalist. Is there really evidence to support that view? Most major media organisations, particularly in the US, are corporations with shareholders who very much buy into the capitalist model.
How about this :
Does adding “hate” to the word “crime” remove the shadow of a doubt from crime?
No, but it’s indication of intent. It’s like a revenge killing or racist graffiti vandalism.
So is it evidence?
“I’m opposed to retributive punishment as it presupposes that the criminal had a choice, and I’m a hard determinist who doesn’t believe a criminal could have chosen not to commit the crime.”
I’m sorry I don’t follow this. I assume to IDF’s action in wiping out Hams is noth to remove the current threat but also will prevent future threats as it will act as deterrent for non Hamas Palestinians to form a “Hamas 2.0” and plan future attacks on Israel? Are you saying that strategy is hopeless?
No, it is a deterrent to future terrorists/organizations (e.g., Hezbollah) who might think, if the IDF pulls out, that Israel is an easy target. I didn’t say that ALL deterrents were useless.
At least in the public/media perception, a hate crime is defined not by the state of mind of the (accused) perpetrator but by the characteristics of the victims. A man might hate his wife and the mother of his children enough to beat her to death in front of them, yet this is not a hate crime. But a person who is a member of a legally protected or politically fashionable group is considered to have been a victim of a hate crime if the (accused) perpetrator is not a member of that group. (OK, admit it, if the perpetrator is white.)
If a Sunni Muslim murders a Shi’ite Muslim, is that a hate crime? Most of us can’t tell the difference, but they can, and they hate each other. Lots of sectarian hate in the diasporas of our multi-cultural society. Do we want to go there?
I suspect that most designations of hate crimes are intended to justify stronger retribution against the perpetrator. This is a poor reason to define them, as you argue. I don’t know if “hatefulness” is relevant to the prospect of rehabilitation or is germane to the need to protect society, beyond the heinousness of the crime itself.
Designating hate crimes tends to politicize the criminal justice system for little likely benefit. I would come down against the practice.
Nope. At least not under the US federal hate-crime statute, 18 USC section 249. Under that statute, a hate crime is one in which the perpetrator causes, or attempts to cause, bodily harm “to any person, because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person.”
The statute, thus, applies on its face to black people who pick white people as their victims, or gay people who pick straight people, or women who pick men, or Muslims who pick Jews, or Sunnis who pick Shia, just as much as it does the opposite. Which is to say that the claim that the hate crime statute (either this federal statute or state statutes that have been drafted to track it) creates protected classes for certain “politically fashionable group[s]” is a myth.
The applicable Vermont hate crime statute, 13 VSA section 1455, is to the same effect.
Yet, “At least in the public/media perception…” so called hate crimes do seem to be biased against whites.
Legislation notwithstanding.
I agree that, of course, the law doesn’t discriminate in writing. Of course it wouldn’t. My point was that when the media want a hate crime, (which was Jerry’s title) they tend to want only certain types of crimes alleged to have been committed by certain types of people against certain types of victims to be hate crimes. I urge my point that the oppressed can never be furiously raged at as hate criminals in the court of public opinion. (Which is why we have professional courts with impartial juries.) If a black person were to be charged with a hate crime, the media would just mutter along sotto voce and call the victim’s death “a tragedy”. (Which I suppose is what they should do with all murders.) Or maybe hint that the victim had it coming. “He crossed state lines!” (Different context.)
I’m not a fan of hate-crime laws because it does give another opportunity (which must be resisted) for the law and justice to be applied with political partiality. The temptation to proceed with the shootings in Vermont as a hate crime in order to placate a combustible community must be intense, especially now. And it adds another element to the case that has to be aired in court, beyond Whodunit?, which the defendant will have to pay his lawyer to mount a defence against. Use of hate crime law, like hate speech law in Canada, should be rare.
ThyroidPlanet asks a good question: Does adding “hate” to the word “crime” remove the shadow of a doubt from crime? Is it evidence? I know the easy answer is that the “hate” specification has to be proved like everything else but I still think it’s a good question.
I am against the idea of ‘hate crimes’ because the the assumptions of the victim are given some priority over the intent of the perpetrator.
So if a light green man assaults a dark green man over the non-payment of a debt, that is a crime. If the dark green man alleges that the crime was a hate crime because he is dark green that could easily be an over reaction. I suspect police are happy to prosecute ‘hate crimes’ because the ‘evidence’ is readily available whether it is true or not.
Although I am keener on rehabilitation than retribution I can see that retribution may reduce the likelihood of the victims friends and family taking up vengeance or vendetta.
As they say on twitter, “You don’t hate journalists enough. You think you do, but you don’t.”
Hate crimes in the UK are based on only some protected characteristics (the Equality Act 2010 recognises 9, but only 5 are worthy of additional “hate crime” protection) and in those cases the perception of the victim in identifying a “hate crime”seems to be the deciding factor. Sex is one of the protected characteristics that isn’t covered, so it’s open season on women. Pretty much as always.
A man rapes and murders another man’s wife. He did it just because he wanted to. Oh, well, at least it wasn’t a hate crime. That would have made it even worse.
A man beats senseless another man who insulted his girlfriend at the bar. Oh, well, at least it wasn’t a hate crime. That would have made it even worse.
A man shoots you in the back during a robbery and paralyzes you for life. He had no hard feelings against you. He simply wanted your wallet and other belongings, and you tried to get away. Oh, well, at least it wasn’t a hate crime. That would have made it even worse.
Hate crimes. I find the whole concept ridiculous and politicized in its application and reporting. Try this little experiment. Eliminate the general word “crime” from the phrase and substitute the name of the specific crime. “Hate rape.” “Hate murder.” “Hate torture.” Does the word “hate” now add anything to our revulsion? Do we need an intensifier to feel strongly that rape, murder, and torture are wrong and cannot be tolerated for any reason in a civil society? No, we don’t. The “hate crime” concept effectively shifts emphasis from the actual crime to the presumed motivation of the perpetrator and the identities and group memberships of both perpetrator and victim. It is a political project that will not ameliorate crime an iota.
I think a case can be made for ‘hate’ making a crime worse. First, it is not true that for a given type of crime – say murder – all instances are equally heinous. When sentencing, the courts take account of aggravating factors which might include motivation – so, for example a spouse who finally snapped after years of abuse and killed their abuser might be treated more leniently than a murderer who’s premeditated crime was motivated by a desire to remove an obstacle to personal financial gain. In the case of a hate crime I’d suggest that the aggravation is that the physical victim is not the only (and not intended to be the only) victim of the crime. Other members of the same religion/race/sexuality/etc are intended to be psychologically affected by the attack. In this respect hate crimes have some common attributes with terrorism.
The types of crime you refer to are all likely to result in severe sentences in any case but the example Mike Hogai gives above is I think useful in demonstrating why hate can be a valid intensifier for a given crime. The boy who paints his name on a synagogue wall simply because it was an available wall is a naughty boy who deserves a wrap on the knuckles but to my mind is clearly much less guilty than an anti-semite who paints a swastika on the same wall knowing that this will provoke a sense of fear and insecurity within the community using that synagogue.
This doesn’t mean that every time a Jew/Moslem/Homosexual/etc is the victim of a crime that the crime was automatically a hate crime but if there is sufficient evidence to convince the court that it was then I think it is neither ridiculous nor virtue signalling for the court to take that into account.
I’m a tad confused about the charge against the shooter:
So, three men injured to varying degrees, and yet:
Doesn’t a murder charge by definition require someone to have been killed?