Confronting hate in Connecticut

Confronting hate in Connecticut

I used to live near Bristol, Connecticut, so I’m glad to see the local paper is doing its part in the war on hate: ethnic backlash in city. Their September 11 front page report detailed 4 “crimes against people of Middle Eastern background” over the previous year:

Shortly after last year’s terror attacks someone scrawled an ethnic epithet on a Paki-owned liquor store.
A man named Sachok walked into a Subway restaurant and used a racial epithet to describe the owner of the business, who does not have a Middle Eastern background. The suspect then threatened to blow the place up but was later apprehended at a candlelit vigil.
Water department employees called the cops when they saw two men who appeared to be of Middle Eastern backgrounds taking photographs near a filtration plant and the cops brought in the FBI.
Three vandals went on a spray-painting spree, writing epithets on homes, vehicles, a church and a school. It was a hate crime because the epithets included references to Osama bin Laden and September 11. The judge was so outraged by the references she said the vandalism bordered on treason.

Posted by Jim Kalb at October 03, 2002 07:02 AM | Send

Comments

So, we are now told that minor vandalism (spray painting grafitti) is the equivalent of treason. Bristol, CT is obviously a sister city of Berkeley, CA!

Posted by: Carl on October 3, 2002 12:43 PM

Actually, it’s a mostly blue collar town. Berkeleyism has gone mass-market.

Posted by: Jim Kalb on October 3, 2002 12:51 PM

Everyone involved should just be thankful that they don’t live in India. If jihadis knocked down the Taj Mahal, the Hindus would not answer back with spray paint.

Posted by: The Sanity Inspector on October 3, 2002 3:37 PM

“Sachok was charged with second-degree hate-based bigotry or bias …”

??? So what’s “first-degree hate based bigotry or bias”?

Posted by: Jason Eubanks on October 5, 2002 11:44 AM