A New York man has been charged with a hate crime after attacking an Asian American woman in Grand Island, outside of Buffalo.
Charles Vacanti, 46, allegedly yelled racist slurs at the woman before hitting her in the face with a pool cue at a bar on March 19 around 4 a.m.
The victim received stitches for a cut to her upper lip and suffered from pain and swelling to her nose and mouth, according to the Erie County District Attorney’s Office. A temporary order of protection was issued on behalf of the victim, the report said.
Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn announced at a news conference last week that Vacanti was arraigned on one count of assault in the second degree as a hate crime and one count of criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree.
Vacanti was arrested on April 20 after witnesses and employees at the bar helped lead investigators to him, Erie County Sheriff John Garcia said during the presser.
Five witnesses at the bar said they saw Vacanti leave after the incident, Garcia said.
Garcia declined to comment on how the incident started.
“They did not know each other. Now how they came about the altercation, that’s something I’d rather not comment on right now. What I could tell you is, prior to the defendant striking the victim, he did use some racial slurs and then struck the victim,” he said.
The Erie County Sheriff’s office declined to offer further comment.
Vacanti has been assigned legal representation but has not entered a plea or commented on the proceeding.
The attack came a month after research spearheaded by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum revealed that 74 percent of Asian American and Pacific Islander women reported having personally experienced racism or discrimination in the last 12 months.
A Port Townsend man is accused of making racist threats towards a Bremerton gas station clerk, threatening to kill him and chasing him after becoming upset that he had to wait to use the restroom.
Bremerton police were called Sunday afternoon to a 76 gas station when the clerks called 911, the Kitsap Sun reported.
They said a man, later identified as Aaron Mylan, asked to use the restroom but became upset when he was told he had to wait.
Mylan, who is white, screamed at the clerks, focusing on one he believed was Asian and began using racial slurs, court documents said. When the clerk said he was Native American, Mylan called him the n-word, according to court documents.
Mylan left and then returned to the store. The clerks tried to lock him out, but he “forced” his way inside, threatened to kill everyone and chased a clerk out of the store, according to court documents.
An officer who found Mylan nearby wrote that Mylan appeared “agitated” and “elevated” and may have been under the influence of drugs or experiencing a mental health crisis.
He was arrested and Monday prosecutors charged him with a hate crime. It wasn’t immediately known if Mylan has a lawyer to comment on the case.
More than 150 years after the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States, most U.S. adults say the legacy of slavery continues to have an impact on the position of black people in American society today. More than four-in-ten say the country hasn’t made enough progress toward racial equality, and there is some skepticism, particularly among blacks, that black people will ever have equal rights with whites, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
A Eugene area white supremacist was sentenced to federal prison today for mailing threatening communications to a former teacher whom he targeted in part because of her sexual orientation.
Gary Franklin, 58, was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison and three years’ supervised release.
According to court documents, between December 2020 and May 2021, Franklin sent two threatening letters to a former community college professor of his whom he targeted in part because of her sexual orientation. The first letter contained a printout of what appeared to be a deceased, mutilated female. Handwritten wording above and below the image included racial and sexual orientation slurs and stated, “What I’d like to do to you.” The second letter contained another photograph of a deceased, decapitated female in a black trunk. The handwritten wording around the image stated that the photograph represented Franklin’s fantasy of what he wanted to do to the victim.
A forensic analysis conducted by the Oregon State Police Laboratory found Franklin’s fingerprints on the first letter. In May 2021, the FBI subsequently executed a search warrant on Franklin’s Eugene residence. Agents found and seized body armor, a boot spike, multiple knives, collapsible batons, a monkey’s fist flail, a set of brass knuckles, a 12-gauge shotgun shell, metal chain mail, and a black trunk like one depicted in his second letter. Agents also uncovered piles of literature and handbooks on death, dismemberment, murder, torture, and sexually-motivated killings.
As the investigation continued, authorities discovered evidence that Franklin was a white supremacist and may have been motivated by white supremacist and neo-Nazi ideologies. Open source and social media research revealed that Franklin was the administrator of a membership website called Aryan Folk. Investigators also discovered a Twitter account for Aryan Folk with a bio stating “I run a website for White Nationalist[s].” While searching Franklin’s residence, agents also discovered multiple photographs of Franklin with items and clothing bearing Nazi and white supremacist symbols.
On May 20, 2021, a federal grand jury in Eugene returned a three-count indictment charging Franklin with stalking and mailing threatening communications. On January 4, 2022, Franklin pleaded guilty to two counts of mailing threatening communications.
A Republican local elections official in Virginia has resigned, according to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office, after being accused of publishing a racist post on Facebook.
Youngkin and other officials called over the weekend for the resignation of David Dietrich, a member of the electoral board in the city of Hampton, after a local TV station reported Dietrich had been accused of using the racist language, including a slur against Black people and a call for a “public lynching.”
Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter said Monday that Dietrich had agreed to resign. Other local officials also confirmed Dietrich had stepped down.
The Republican Party of Hampton drew attention to the issue in its own Facebook post Friday, saying it had become aware of a Facebook post from Dietrich in which he used “abhorrent and unacceptable racist language.”
The group included a screenshot of the apparent post, which was dated Feb. 17, 2021, and appeared to have been removed or made private by Monday. The screenshot included language criticizing Lloyd Austin, the nation’s first Black secretary of defense, and retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, who was tapped by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to review the Capitol’s security after the Jan. 6 insurrection.
In a statement, Rebecca Winn, vice-chair of the electoral board, confirmed that Dietrich stepped down from his post on Saturday afternoon. By Saturday evening, Deitrich’s name had been removed from the board’s official website.
According to a previous statement, the board said Deitrich originally refused to step down from his post after being confronted with the inflammatory posts.
On Saturday afternoon, Gov. Glenn Youngkin used Twitter to call for Dietrich’s removal from the board.
In his tweet, Youngkin stated it was his responsibility to “serve all Virginians” and would not accept racism in the Commonwealth, or the Republican party.
A British teenager received a six-week prison sentence Wednesday after admitting to posting a racist tweet about soccer star Marcus Rashford.
Justin Lee Price, 19, sent the message after the European Championship final last year, Reuters reported.
“Price targeted a footballer based on the color of his skin, and his action was clearly racist and a hate crime,” Mark Johnson, a senior crown prosecutor for Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) West Midlands, said in a statement.
Rashford is one of several Black players on England’s soccer team who were targeted with racist messages on social media following their loss to Italy in the July championship match. He, along with Jadon Sanchi and Bukayo Saka, missed penalty kicks during the match, which was England’s first opportunity to score a major tournament victory in 55 years, The New York Times reported.
Price, who is from Worcester, admitted earlier this month to racially abusing Rashford, according to a CPS news release. The CPS said he posted a racist tweet in reference to Rashford on July 11, 2021, after England’s loss to Italy, but initially tried to distance himself from it to avoid detection.
Price changed his username after the tweet was reported, and then denied posting the tweet in his first police interview after being arrested, the release said. He admitted to the offense in his second police interview.
He pleaded guilty on March 17 in Worcester Magistrates’ Court to sending a grossly offensive message by public communication network, and received his sentence for six weeks of “immediate imprisonment” Wednesday at Kidderminster Magistrates’ Court.
Johnson, the CPS West Midlands prosecutor, said in his statement that people who “racially abuse footballers ruin the game for all.”
“I hope this case sends out the message that we will not tolerate racism, and offenders will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” he added.
Disturbing video footage showing a suspected white supremacist violently threatening a fast-food worker over an order dispute seemed to check all the boxes for a federal hate crime by way of a threatened lynching in an N-word laced rant. The video filmed at the counter of a Popeyes restaurant was going viral on Sunday and left no doubt about how the racist customer who starred in the footage really feels about Black people.
There is little context accompanying the video that abruptly opens showing the unidentified white man angrily walking toward the counter that separates Popeyes customers from workers, one of whom was filming the encounter. While holding a phone to his ear, the white man, who is clearly very upset, demands a “refund” for his food.
One worker, an older man, said some unintelligible words before the white man pointed at the camera and claimed the worker filming called him a “cracker.”
When the older worker asked the white man why he was called that, his response immediately offered the missing context.
The white man roared his response: “I called her a f*cking nigger after she called me a cracker!”
But just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, the white man took it there — he physically threatened to beat the worker who he said called him a “cracker” and then suggested he would lynch them.
It is not clear when the footage was recorded, but it appeared to be a TikTok video. However, a visit to the page for the account the video is credited to — @mikehawk397 — didn’t show the video in its feed.
“2022 we still have DEEP hatred for the opposite color of skin!!” the social media post said. “OKEECHOBEE it’s sickening.”
That led a social media sleuth to claim to have identified the white man in the video by posting a purported mugshot from 2014 showing a photo of a man who may or may not be the same person.
The person in the mugshot was identified as “Colton Pete Norsworthy” of “Okeechobee, Glades, FL.”
United State Attorney Vanessa R. Waldref announced on March 10 that her office’s increased resource dedication to civil rights, including its participation in a first of its kind, anti-hate crime outreach program entitled United Against Hate, which seeks to directly connect federal, state, and local law enforcement with traditionally marginalized communities in order to build trust and encourage the reporting of hate crimes and hate incidents.
“I am honored that our office has been chosen to take the lead nationally in the fight against hate crimes with the United Against Hate outreach initiative,” said United State Attorney Waldref. “Combatting hate and hate-driven offenses is vital to our mission of building stronger and safer communities for everyone,” added U.S. Attorney Waldref.
In November, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington was chosen as one of three districts, out of 94 districts in the nation, to advance the United Against Hate outreach initiative. United Against Hate is a panel presentation involving subject matter experts from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI, and local law enforcement partners, who engage in direct discussions with members of marginalized communities and those most vulnerable to hate crimes and hate incidents. Hate crimes are commonly defined as crimes committed because of the perpetrator’s perception of the victim’s race, color, religion, national origin, physical or mental disability, family status, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
Hate crimes can be prosecuted under Washington state law and can often also be prosecuted under federal laws such as the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. By making direct contact with the communities most vulnerable to hate crimes and hate incidents, law enforcement can provide visibility into reporting systems and highlight the importance of reporting hate crimes and hate incidents. Additionally, the United Against Hate outreach initiative provides an opportunity for communities to share their concerns with law enforcement, in order to decrease barriers that prevent hate crimes and hate incidents from being reported. The outreach also provides opportunities to increase communication and collaboration between the communities that are most frequently targeted for hate crimes and incidents and the law enforcement professionals responsible for investigating and preventing them.
The data collected on hate crimes and hate incidents underscores the importance of this outreach initiative. Based on the Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey, between 2010 and 2019 over 55% of hate crimes nationwide were not reported to law enforcement. Applying that non-reporting rate to available FBI Crime Data indicates that in Spokane County alone there is reason to believe that as many as 25 hate crimes went unreported to law enforcement in 2019 and 2020.
A 28-year-old homeless man has been charged with hate crimes after a string of unprovoked attacks on women of Asian descent in New York, police said.
Steven Zajonc was arrested on Wednesday in connection with assaults on seven women in different Manhattan neighbourhoods over a two-hour period on Sunday.
The victims were all women of Asian descent ranging in age from 19 to 57, police said. Most were punched in the face; one was shoved to the ground. Two were treated at hospitals.
Zajonc was arrested on seven counts each of assault as a hate crime, attempted assault as a hate crime, aggravated harassment and harassment. It was not clear whether he had a lawyer who could comment on the charges.
Zajonc was apprehended at a midtown Manhattan library after two library guards recognised him from surveillance videos of the crime scenes and alerted police, officials with the New York Public Library said. hate crimes
According to an NYPL news release, Roshanta Williams, a guard at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation library branch, alerted senior guard Elmirel Cephas on Wednesday that a regular patron of the library looked like the suspect police were seeking.
Cephas later spotted Zajonc walking into the library and called the police, the library officials said. Zajonc locked himself in a single-stall bathroom, and the guards monitored the area until officers arrived, the officials said. Library officials said Zajonc, who used a Manhattan drop-in centre as his address, had often locked himself in the bathroom in the past.
“Our guards have the extremely challenging job, especially under recent circumstances, of keeping our branches safe and welcoming for all New Yorkers,” Iris Weinshall, the NYPL’s chief operating officer, said.
“They do this extremely well every day, but today went above and beyond to help the [New York City Police Department] keep our streets safer.”
Anti-Asian hate and hate crimes against Asians and Pacific Islanders in the U.S. have been rising since 2015.
A recent survey of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) in the Los Angeles suburban communities of the San Gabriel Valley found that about a third had experienced or had a family member experience a race-based hate incident since the March 2020 start of the pandemic.
Most were the sorts of verbal abuse that doesn’t get reported to police agencies. Nearly half of the respondents said they feel less safe than they did prior to the pandemic.
The overall increase in race-based abuse and Anti-Asian hate coincides with increasingly negative attitudes towards China in the wider population and the specific rise since the pandemic coincides with inflammatory rhetoric about a “China virus” or “Chinese virus.”
Many see these phenomena as linked. Anxieties about China’s rise, allegations that China’s progress comes at the expense of Americans and the climate of worry generated by an airborne illness that has already taken 900,000 lives in the U.S. have nurtured fear, discrimination and violence.
Many people and organizations have pushed back against the rise in hate speech and violence. Along with partners, we have held events focusing on this (April, May). reported on some of this a year ago.
Abuse and violence have not abated. More work is needed. Recognizing and documenting the harm done, not just to individual victims but to other people who are made to feel unwelcome and vulnerable is an important first step.
Prosecuting these crimes and publicizing these prosecutions is essential. Encouraging victims and witnesses to come forward is vital. Educating all about the history of discrimination against AAPI and the ongoing struggles against the fear and prejudices that foster it is hard, time-consuming and necessary.
Read the complete article at: Anti-Asian Hate Still Rising | US-China Institute (usc.edu)
Three tunnels near an Anne Frank memorial in Idaho were vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti during Hanukkah, police and city officials said.
The vile graffiti, discovered in three tunnels near the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in downtown Boise, was “cleaned and covered up” by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department early Saturday, police said in a statement.
“We recognize the significance of this being the last Saturday of Hanukkah and we are reaching out to Jewish leaders in our community to let them know we will not stand for such hateful and abhorrent behavior in our city,” Police Chief Ryan Lee said.
City officials learned of the vandalism, including at least 12 instances of graffiti, early Saturday, the Idaho Statesman reported.
“Absolutely abhorrent conduct, and we’re not going to sit idly by and let that be,” Lee told the newspaper. “If that meant that we had to get brushes and paint over it ourselves, we were going to do it.”
The graffiti contained swastikas, other anti-Semitic messages and threats targeting minorities, KIVI reported.
An investigation is underway, but there’s no apparent threat to Boise’s Jewish residents or a need for them to take “enhanced security” measures, Lee told the Idaho Statesman.
The graffiti comes after a swastika was found painted on Boise’s Idaho Building last month. Stickers with Nazi imagery were also discovered on the Anne Frank memorial in December 2020. It’s unclear if the vandalism discovered Saturday was connected to those previous incidents, Lee said.
“We recognize that for a lot of members of our community, even members that aren’t of the Jewish faith, this does not make them feel safe,” the chief told the newspaper. “It does not fit with the welcoming, kind image that Boise is.”
Whoever is responsible for the graffiti was acting out of “hateful ignorance,” Lee said.
“I wish we could rise to our better selves,” he continued. “Unfortunately, not everybody does.”
Source: New York Post
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