Hate-crime motivation still in question

[Judi Lynn]

May 12, 2006, 10:36PM
Hate-crime motivation still in question
Officials looking into whether the ethnicity of teen added to severity of Spring beating

By BILL MURPHY
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Three weeks after a 17-year-old Hispanic youth was savagely beaten in Spring, investigators remain unsure whether ethnic hatred prompted the attack.

But even if that did not motivate the suspects to initiate the beating, detectives are investigating whether they beat the youth more severely because he is Hispanic, said Assistant District Attorney Mike Trent.

"We can't say for sure that it's a hate crime," he said. "They might have gotten mad at him for one reason. But the extent of the bad things they did might have been because of racial prejudice."

The case is not being prosecuted as a hate crime because that would not increase the sentence the suspects will face if convicted of the crime with which they're charged — aggravated sexual assault, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

But two prominent civil rights groups, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, have labeled the April 22 attack a hate crime. Hector Flores, LULAC's national president, lobbied U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week to change the federal hate crime law to include attacks on private property. The attack in Spring happened in a backyard.

Prompted by the attack, state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said he will seek to strengthen the state hate crime law and create a registry for hate crime offenders comparable to the sex offender registry.
(snip/...)

http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/3860517.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Last night DU received a post from the victem's cousin. Hoping he will somehow pull through this vicious damage done to him, and return to health some day. Here is his cousin's post:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2254584#2278712

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For those DU'ers who didn't see another thread from the Houston Chronicle, the old suspect, David Henry Tuck, was identified by a Hispanic man who had been beaten severely by Tuck, who was very young a couple of years ago, and two grown men while he was attempting to buy gas at a service station in Texas. The two men went to prison for this attack, although the other one managed to get by with something superficial. I can't even remember what it was.

He has a long record of violence, some of it unspeakable.