nwasianweekly.com
Dec. 8, 2007

Hate crimes call for appropriate punishments

On Nov. 29, James Nichols, the white hunter who killed Cha Vang, a Hmong man, in Wisconsin earlier this year, was sentenced to 69 years in prison — the maximum penalty that his conviction of second-degree intentional homicide carries.

Hmong advocates in Madison had urged the state Justice Department to more vigorously prosecute cases as hate crimes. The prosecutor in the Nichols case decided against doing so, because he assumed he wouldn’t win a conviction on those grounds, according to Associated Press reports.

Nonetheless, the judge’s ruling showed that those who commit racially motivated crimes (Nichols was recorded in police interviews referring to Hmong as “bad” and “mean” people who “kill everything, they don’t care what it is,” according to the AP) will not get off lightly. And although the sentence cannot ease the grief of the victim’s family, they are satisfied that justice was served when the judge meted out the maximum penalty.

Recently, a horrific hate crime occurred in our own region: On Nov. 24, 20-year-old Luis Vázquez, of Kent, attacked a Sikh taxi driver, Sukhvir Singh, whom Vázquez accused of being an “Iraqi terrorist.”

Vázquez had been ejected from a football game for drunkenness, and police officers put him in a cab to be taken home, per standard police procedures. While Singh, who is from India, was driving, Vázquez started calling him a terrorist and threatened to kill him, according to court documents. He choked Singh, punched him, bit his scalp and pulled his hair so hard that he tore clumps out.

Vázquez was charged on Nov. 27 with third-degree assault and one count of malicious harassment, the state’s version of hate-crime law. A conviction would carry up to a year of prison time, according to a spokesman for the King County Prosecutor’s Office.

Initially, the crime had not been considered a hate crime, but after pressure from the Sikh community, the King County’s Prosecuting Attorney’s Office declared the beating was being investigated as a hate crime. In addition, the FBI opened its own investigation to determine whether to file federal hate crime charges, according to the Sikh Coalition.

That community voices, especially communities of color, are being considered and acted upon, is heartening news. We applaud the decision of the King County Prosecutor’s Office to label the attack a hate crime. And like the case in Wisconsin, we expect Vázquez to be punished to the full extent of the law. All violent crimes are despicable, but those that are motivated by racial hate are especially reprehensible, and the punishment should reflect that.



Victims of hate crimes should not be afraid to come forth. If you are a victim of a hate crime, or have witnessed a hate crime, you should not only report the crime to the police, but also contact civil rights organizations and alert your local county prosecutor.

Organizations that work with hate crime victims:

NW Coalition Against Malicious Harassment
P.O. Box 21428
Seattle, WA 98111
206-233-9136

Seattle Anti-Defamation League
600 Stewart St.
Seattle, WA 98101
seattle@adl.org
206-448-5349
www.adl.org

Organization of Chinese Americans-Greater Seattle Chapter
606 Maynard Ave. S., Suite 104
Seattle, WA 98114
206-682-0665
www.ocaseattle.org

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