LA: Registrant beaten after being recognized from sex offender flyer.
A 17-year-old boy who realized he was at the same convenience store as a man whose picture had appeared on a mailed sex-offender notice followed the man away from the shop and beat him up, New Orleans police said this week.
Now, besides facing a count of misdemeanor battery, Tyrin Calloway stands accused of a hate crime, apparently on the theory that he targeted his alleged victim, a stranger, for being a registered sex offender, according to Criminal District Court records.
… While paramedics took the man to a hospital, police handcuffed Calloway and questioned him. They said he waived his right to remain silent and explained that the beaten man was on a sex-offender notice card the teenager had received in the mail.
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Wow. I’m really shocked that a backwoods state like Louisiana has a more progressive way to handle vigilantism against registrants than Floriduh. Okay, so I’m not so surprised since there are no books in NOLA. Not only is this man protected by a hate crime law, but the paper didn’t reveal his identity.
When this happens in Floriduh, there is no protection because the “Hate Crimes Law” doesn’t exist. It’s nothing but a reporting system:
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0800-0899/0877/Sections/0877.19.html
Unless you consider 775.085 Evidencing prejudice while committing offense; reclassification.— [which takes into account age over 65 and homelessness]
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0700-0799/0775/Sections/0775.085.html
Also, in Floriduh, this man’s face and crimes would be the focus of the story, not that he was victimized and severely beaten. I was somewhat appalled by the arrogance of the attacker. He thought it was okay to attack a registered citizen just because he was on the registry.
From the article:
“Louisiana law provides for hate crime charges when victims are targeted “because of actual or perceived race, age, gender, religion, color, creed, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, or ancestry of that person or the owner or occupant of that property or because of actual or perceived membership or service in, or employment with, an organization.”
Court documents didn’t specify under which of those definitions police booked Calloway on the hate crime count.”
I will be very curious to see if this charge stands up and, if so, how exactly they will categorize the victim under that statute. That could be an interesting precedent. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
A huge example of the
punitive nature of a public registry…..so glad to see the police viewed it as a hate crime.
But wait, to be a hate crime, we have to be a recognized class of people. If so we would guaranteed certain protections under the law that before this incident, didn’t seem to be afforded to us.
Hum, is this progress ? If so sorry that man had to be the case study for it by being beaten up.
About time the Registry is looked upon hit list. I don’t like to see anyone in jail but I think the cops did the right thing by charging the kid with hate crime!
Of course he did! It’s understandable – a kid (which he legally is not 18) is doing what he is genetically programed to do which is help his group/tribe survive.
He was reacting to the innate US/THEM impulse which helped our species evolve and is “hardwired” into us. The government has done a GREAT JOB using this to deliberately dehumanizing those they label as “sex offenders” so they not wanted in ANY social group!
Everyone does it from soccer mom’s blocking a sex offender from picking up their child from school – to communities putting up a bench and a planting a tree then calling it a park and using that as a “legal” way of keeping those labelled as “sex offenders” out of THEIR community.
You can hardly blame this “child” for simply doing what his parents, community leaders, and police ALL DO (think those high absurd yet daming Halloween signs) and it shows how incredibly susceptible we are as a species for this sort of manipulation which more than not has tragic results for us – YET – remember “it’s not punishment”! Bullshit
As long as we are nothing more than a faceless group nothing is going to change. Just as the gays managed to become individuals and not simply a stereotype – we must do the same – it is the ONLY way!
#RegistrationIsPunishment
Well said my friend. This man and his family needs to sue the hell out of not just the boys family and take them for everything they own, but sue the state as well. Take it as far as they can take it and make an example (haven’t we heard that before) out of the state, the boy and his family, and put everyone else on notice that this is NOT going to happen ANYMORE! Like you said, we need to stand up and fight and we need to do it by taking our gloves off. No holds barred anymore. This is insane.