Four suspected White supremacists (with skinhead tattoos) have pled not guilty to a hate crime involving a Latino man they allegedly attacked in Huntington Beach:Four suspected white supremacists pled not guilty at an Orange County Superior Court today to attempted murder after prosecutors and police say the group attacked a Latino man in Huntington Beach.Erin Brooks, 24, Brian Hanson, 26, Michael Powell, 21, and Bret Hicks, 30, also pled not guilt to charges of aggravated assault with hate crime enhancements which could lead to 20 years in prison each. The suspects did not comment during today's hearing and were represented by private attorneys.
The four people are being identified as white supremacists based on their tattoos, which say "Skinhead," "White Pride" and "Hate" and have references to "Heil Hitler" and a Nazi swastika, prosecutors and court documents said.
The original crime was written up here.:Reinhart said three men and a woman were circling the Oak View community, a predominantly Latino neighborhood in Huntington Beach, about 11:55 p.m. July 3 to hurt someone who is "non-white," Reinhart said.
When the group found the victim standing in an alley speaking with another person, they attacked, yelling racial slurs, Reinhart said. The Orange County Register is excluding the victim's name because of concerns for his safety.
The victim was stabbed three times, fell to the ground and was punched and kicked when neighbors came to his rescue, Reinhart said.
"Apparently, several people from the neighborhood jumped in to assist the victim and beat up the suspects," he said.
That people would be so whipped up to hatred against another race or ethnicity to go and seek out people to attack and possibly kill is disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.But as one might expect, the OCR's commentariat — with its mix of Latino- or minority-bashing and more level-headed thinkers — has some coming to their defense:
While blanket hatred is totally counterproductive, the paper does not mention the "victims" background nor his affiliations. What was said or done leading up to the incident. It is true that we have sanctioned People of Color actions and sense of entitlement by making it o.k. for them to publicly proclaim the fact that they are "Brown and Proud" as well as offer immigrants so many rights and bonuses that they feel we owe it to them. This is a perfect example of "today's perks; are tomorrows expectations." When a white publicly states the same sentiment, they are viewed as ignorant inbreeds. After reading many of the posts, I can see why. However, I am able to see their point; which is we have crossed the line of tolerance and entered into a forum of reverse discrimination. No excuse for what these people supposedly did but I highly doubt that is what happened.Yep, "brown and proud" makes me want to go drive through a Hispanic community and beat up some random Latino person. More likely, the knee-jerk attitude among many Whites in Orange County (and the rest of Southern California) that any Hispanic they see is probably an illegal (a view that comes through in the OCR comments section sometimes) is actually a greater contributor to the antisocial anger and violence of these four.
Among the more level-headed responses:
I love it when people blame their own inadequacies on other races. Um, for the record you probably can't find a job NOT because someone else (i.e. a "minority") "took it" from you. But rather because of your poor work ethic, bad attitude, lack of experience, or unprofessional appearance.True in California and other parts of the US where I've lived.
I can't believe that there are still so many skinheads in OC (you can't erase racism from people, but the fact they show it off and not try to hide it is amazing). I do remember a few times when I went to HB and some white folks would make racist remarks and gestures (pulling their eyes back) right in front of my face when I was younger...and this was in the early '80s. Man...these guys' tattoos are going to be a big hit in the prison system. I wonder if they got their shiners from the people who came to the victims' aid or while awaiting trial.
ReplyDeleteUnprofessional appearance? Me?
ReplyDeleteSome of the commenters at the OCR site mentioned that the tattoos may in fact be from prison, as these upstanding citizens with prior convictions may have had to ally themselves with White supremacists in prison for protection.
ReplyDeleteOf course, one wonders how they got into prison in the first place. And one also should point out that no one forced them to head to Oak View to randomly attack a Latino person.
The Sanity Inspector, I was all set to say, "Ha! The joke's on you! We don't even have Walmarts in Orange County!"
ReplyDeleteBut a quick look reveals that apparently we have eleven of them. And at least a few probably have people walking around with their butt cracks showing, and their belly fat flopped over their belt line is the only thing holding their pants up.
We used to not have Walmarts in the OC, by design. I tried to find a link talking about that, but all I found was some other Orange County (there are lesser OCs out there) and their problems with Walmart trying to build a supercenter on the site of a major Civil War battlefield (Wilderness Battlefield in Virginia).
Walmart's contention is that "if the Walmart store is not built, there is nothing preventing a series of other retail projects less than 60,000 square feet from being built on the property by right."
Stay classy, Walmart.
Thats really disgusting. In my opinion, these white supremacists (or anyone who thinks his/her race is better) are trying to hide their incompetence using their skin color/race as a cover. They know that among their own race (or ethnicity) they are considered as substandard (low life), so their ego is shattered and a compensatory mechanism from their not so complicated brain will arise, and the expression of hatred against other groups will start to dominate their thoughts (escapism). No different from a pre-Homo hominid.
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