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by Chance Martin
Imagine that a new recreational drug emerged on the national scene in 1999,
and say it was responsible for 123 senseless and preventable deaths to date.
Television newscasts and newspapers would be screaming about such a story.
U.S. Representatives and Senators would bluster and blather about it for
hours in special hearings (at taxpayer's expense), and the DEA would be
tapping telephones, monitoring emails, and kicking in citizen's doors from
coast to coast to rescue us from this menace (at taxpayer's expense).
In the four years from 1999 to 2003, two hundred and twelve separate
instances of hate crimes committed against homeless people have been
documented by the National Coalition for the Homeless' (NCH) Civil Rights
Work Group -- a nationwide network of civil rights and homeless advocates.
The reports, as well as NCH's findings and recommendations, were recently
compiled in a four year study released on April 10th, 2003: Hate, Violence,
and Death on Main Street USA: A Report on Hate Crimes and Violence Against
People Experiencing Homelessness in 2002.
Now, imagine two hundred African Americans, Arab Americans, Asian Americans,
Jewish Americans, etc. were victims of hate crimes in the same four years.
Or say it was 200 Latino Americans, or immigrants, or disabled people, or
seniors. Or because this is San Francisco, imagine 200 gay, lesbian,
transgendered, and bisexual people were violently attacked in circumstances
that were clearly motivated by hate, and over half of these misdeeds
resulted in violent deaths.
Could we find that acceptable? Not very likely.
The public would be rightly shocked and outraged, voices rising in a
reflexive hue and cry to call for an end to this -- the most fundamental
violation of anyone's human rights.
Recognizing this disturbing American trend as a "national epidemic," NCH's
Executive Director Donald Whitehead charges, "Our country is in its darkest
hour. It is time that we expose these acts of cowardice against people
without homes. It is time we bring this darkness to light."
DEFINING HATE
In 1968, the U.S. Congress defined a hate crime as a crime in which the
defendant intentionally selects a victim because of their race, color or
national origin (Title 18 U.S.C Section 245). The first federal law to
combat hate crimes, 18 USC Section 245, passed in 1968. It mandated that the
government must prove both that the crime occurred because of a victim's
membership in a designated group and because the victim was engaged in
certain specified federally-protected activities -- such as serving on a
jury, voting, or attending public school.1
Hate crimes are commonly called bias-motivated crimes, referring to the
prejudice or partiality of the perpetrator against the victim's real or
perceived grouping or circumstance. Most hate crimes are not committed by
organized hate groups, but by individual citizens who harbor strong
resentments against certain groups of people. Some are "mission offenders,"
who believe they are on a mission "to cleanse the world of a particular
evil." Others are "scapegoat offenders," who project their resentment toward
the growing economic power of a particular racial or ethnic group through
violent actions. Still others are "thrill seekers," those who take advantage
of a vulnerable and disadvantaged group in order to satisfy their own
pleasures.2
Thrill seekers, primarily teens and young adults, are the most common
perpetrators of violence against homeless people in the United States.
Experts are at a loss to explain this surge in violent attacks by the young
and the strong on the destitute and vulnerable, often blaming violent and
sensational media, bad parenting, or a lack of morals.
Since STREET SHEET first reported on this national tragedy (see Summer of
Fear - STREET SHEET 9/99) we have regularly monitored news reports of hate
crimes against homeless people nationally. What NCH's report fails to state
directly, but can be rather easily determined by simply reading the
information they’ve compiled, is that after teens and young adults, the next
emerging identifiable group most likely to engage in hate crimes against
homeless people are members of local police agencies.
LS Wilson, coordinator for the Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco's
Civil Rights project and a member of NCH's Board of Directors, says he
routinely sees police selectively enforcing quality of life laws with
homeless people. "When law enforcement regularly targets homeless people for
quality of life crimes, the public is left thinking that all homeless people
are lazy, drug-addicted criminals. The fact is that homeless folks are far
more likely to be victims of violent crimes than perpetrators."
FOUR YEARS OF VIOLENCE IN REVIEW
Of violent hate crimes from 98 cities in 34 states and Puerto Rico that NCH
has compiled, only 89 of the reported assaults were non-lethal, while 123
have resulted in the murders of homeless people. Among the victims, the
oldest was a 74 year-old man, the youngest a four month-old infant.
2002's hate crimes resulted in 16 deaths and 21 injuries from non-lethal
violence. 34 men and two women were among the victims. Eleven of these
victims were age 54 and older.
Many of the reported hate crimes are so horrific that they should be widely
examined as case studies, such as the unsolved serial slayings of seven
homeless men in Denver, Colorado's trendy lower downtown district in the
fall and winter of 1999. All the victims were beaten to death, one so
savagely that his skull was found in pieces, and two victims were also
beheaded. The only eyewitness account pointed to several juvenile male
suspects seen beating a homeless man in an alley. "It is just as important
to find and bring these killers to justice as it is to find the murderer of
Jon-Benet Ramsey," declared John Parvensky, director of the Colorado
Coalition for the Homeless.
Of the eighteen homeless people who were reported victims of beatings last
year, eleven died as a result. Of the four case descriptions of homeless
people set afire while they slept in 2002, two resulted in fatalities. Three
reported shootings of homeless people -- one these by an off-duty fireman --
added two deaths and three wounded to 2002's total body count.
In Los Angeles, bus driver Cruz Vaca refused to permit a homeless citizen in
that city's Koreatown district to board his eastbound bus. "You are not
going to get on my bus," Vaca shouted as the man banged on the door. The
homeless man then moved in front to block the bus, but the determined Vaca
ran him down. Only after passengers screamed for the driver to stop was the
homeless man's body recovered from under the bus. Cruz Vaca faces a mere
six years in prison if convicted.
Two Hyattsville, Maryland police officers were indicted for first and second
degree assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct because they beat and
turned a police dog on 28 year old Hector Millan. This occurred only months
after former Prince George's County, Maryland officer Stephanie Mohr was
convicted for violation of civil rights under color of law for releasing her
police dog to attack homeless sleeper Ricardo Mendez, who already had his
hands up against a wall.
Not so fortunate was Luis Rafael Objio, who managed to survive two gunshot
wounds at the hands of a Tampa, Florida police officer. Two witnesses
watched the officer aggravating the mentally disabled 45 year-old until he
produced a putty knife to defend himself, and then they pleaded with the
officer not to shoot. Another witness who owned a grocery store near the
scene cited the incident as another example of excessive police force,
saying, "Rafael wouldn't bother nobody."
Witnesses to a Fort Worth, Texas, homeless beating certainly weren't as
concerned about the safety of 39 year-old Ronald Watkins. According to
police accounts, after Watkins fell to the ground in a fight with someone he
was seen arguing with earlier, several onlookers joined in, stomping and
kicking Watkins to death.
As brutally painful as his death must have been, it was far more merciful
than that of Gregory Glenn Biggs, also of Fort Worth, who died after a
hit-and-run accident in October of 2001. The driver stuck Biggs on her way
home from a bar, continued home and parked her car in her garage with Biggs
still alive, but trapped in her windshield as a result of the impact. Biggs
could have still survived, because he pleaded for help for most of the two
days he lay bleeding to death in the dark garage. To her credit, or her
shame, the driver, 25 year old Chante Mallard, did finally summon help -- to
help her in dump Biggs' lifeless body in a nearby park.
2002's non-lethal attacks make for some of the most disturbing accounts,
like the group of patriotic young men in Anchorage, Alaska who celebrated
Independence Day by burning a homeless man with sparklers. Two separate
reports from Tucson, Arizona and San Diego, California detailed homeless
people being hunted down and pelted by paintball enthusiasts; in the San
Diego case the offenders were off-duty enlisted Navy personnel.
But in all 2002's litany of shame, the report that stands out as perhaps
most indicative of the larger societal problem was that of self-styled
"citizen activist" Al Gallego, age 65, of Las Vegas, Nevada. Quality of life
zealot Gallego became so incensed at the sight of a homeless man with pants
down and attempting to defecate against a wall that he used his pickup truck
to trap this fecal offender against the wall and summoned police. Much to
Mr. Gallego's surprise, the officers who responded arrested this vigilante
for assaulting the homeless man with a deadly weapon. Gallego's charges,
unfortunately, were later dropped.
Even if his charges weren't dropped, another news item raises serious doubts
about the quality of justice that homeless people might expect in court: In
May of 2001, Washington D.C. Superior Court Senior Judge Tim Murphy ignored
the pleas of a homeless man as he lay dying. Robert L. Waters Jr., a
homeless asthmatic on trial for public drinking, collapsed in Murphy’s
courtroom, begging "Sir, I believe I'm dying... Please, help me, somebody.
Help me, please. I can't breathe." Judge Murphy ignored his cries and
continued to call other cases. "He can lie there," the judge said. "Won't
affect business one bit."
Hours later, despite every effort from the paramedics who were summoned too
late, Robert Waters died, leading one Washington Post editorial writer to
observe, "Before Judge Tim Murphy came along, you would have thought that a
courtroom was the one place where everybody had a right to be heard."
"The whole scene is a testimony to the fact that the mill of justice can
grind the humanity out of you," Vincent L. Schiraldi, president of the
Justice Policy Institute -- a D.C.-based nonprofit promoting alternatives to
incarceration -- was quoted saying. "It's like these guys don't have names
and faces, just numbers on a court jacket... The court was so eager to mete
out justice that they couldn't pause a moment to save one of the throng."
MOST DANGEROUS STATE TO BE HOMELESS: CALIFORNIA
The report cites California as the most lethal state in which to be
homeless. Thirty two separate violent acts were reported in 18 of the Golden
State's cities, including six hate crimes in Santa Cruz, five in San Diego,
three in Los Angeles, and two each in San Francisco, Sacramento, Modesto and
Santa Ana. Reported hate crimes resulted in 20 deaths and 15 non-lethal acts
of violence.
"California has always had more of a tourist economy, so homelessness there
is often noticed more. I believe the lack of meaningful response from local
officials has helped create a backlash of violence against homeless people
there," says Michael Stoops, Director of Community Organizing for NCH.
The San Francisco Coalition’s LS Wilson, who was once homeless himself, says
"Officials here spend more time, money, and energy criminalizing poor and
homeless people than addressing homelessness' root causes… like housing,
healthcare, and employment. The end result is a game of 'blame the victim',
producing no real solutions for ending homelessness."
On a more positive note, one other factor that may account for the increased
reporting of homeless hate crimes in California is the efforts of the
California Homeless Civil Rights Organizing Project (CHCROP) -- a statewide
network of homeless and civil rights advocates (including the Coalition on
Homelessness) and service providers that was organized in 1999 as a response
to awful record of civil rights abuses against homeless Californians.
"California homeless advocates know what's going on. CHCROP has done a great
job of documenting civil rights abuses and hate crimes. They're advocating
for the civil rights of homeless people, and poor and homeless people in
California are learning how to fight back," reported NCH's Stoops.
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
As disturbing as the case descriptions contained in NCH's report are, what
is even more ominous is that homeless people have almost no protection
against such cruelty. Poor people are not a protected class under federal
civil rights statutes, and none of the current hate crime laws in the United
States include or acknowledge hate crimes based on economic or housing
status.
Police seemingly prioritize investigations of violent crimes against
homeless people only when the need can no longer be ignored. Few of these
crimes are ever actually reported to law enforcement; homeless people are
reluctant to report violent crimes for many reasons, from investigating
officers' frequent attitudes of derision and suspicion toward homeless
victims, to fear of the police in general stemming from quality of life
enforcement practices.
Law enforcement agencies' fear and hatred of homeless people is demonstrated
daily by sanctioned disregard for homeless people's basic safety. When the
average number of yearly reports detailing police violence to homeless
people is now joined by accounts of firefighters, enlisted military
personnel, city bus drivers, superior court judges, even would-be "citizen
watchdogs" attacking people without housing, can we at least agree this is
one problem that is serious and growing?
And exactly who do we suppose utters the real message that America is
telling its youth?
SEEDS OF HATE: SENSATIONALIST MEDIA
Discrimination against people experiencing homelessness is becoming commonly
accepted in today's society. For instance, shock-jock Michael Savage, the
popular host of the radio talk show "Savage Nation," said on April 23, 2002
that, "In a sane society, they [bums] would be beaten up, thrown in a van,
and thrown in a work camp."
Statements like this reinforce negative stereotypes of homelessness, and
often serve to ferment violent acts against homeless individuals. "People
like Mr. Savage think their portrayals of homelessness are entertainment,
but their words help inform a growing public fear and hate of homeless
people," NCH Director Donald Whitehead told STREET SHEET.
"As more and more men, women and children are forced into poverty by
worsening economic conditions and the widening and growing gap between the
rich and the poor, their cries for help are not being greeted with kindness
or benevolence, but are instead being greeted with apathy, violence and
hate."
April of 2002 saw the release of "Bumfights: A Cause For Concern" -- a
parade of gratuitous violence and gore depicting the worst imaginable
behavior of homeless people in Las Vegas and Southern California. This
un-rated video, promoted by radio shock jock Howard Stern and denounced on
the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, is available for sale on the
internet. It consists of street brawls, scary stunts, even a parody of
"Crocodile Hunter," called "Bum Hunter," who dons safari attire and startles
sleeping homeless men by tackling them and binding their ankles, wrists,
mouths with duct tape. Besides fighting, footage also includes several
"Jackass"-inspired stunts, like a homeless man ripping out his front teeth
with pliers, and a man identified as "Rufus the Stunt Bum" careening down a
flight of concrete steps in a shopping cart.
The film's producers, Las Vegas natives Ray Leticia and Ty Beeson, sold
250,000 copies of Bumfights by July of that year at about $22 apiece, and
are estimated to have earned more than $2 million since the video's initial
release, turning the two 24-year-olds into sudden millionaires.
Leticia and Beeson denied paying anyone to incite violence, and in prior
media interviews claimed they never paid cash to anyone in the film. Later
they acknowledged that they gave money and food, but maintained these were
gifts "because they're our friends."
Leticia and Beeson's story has been inconsistent in other ways. The pair
claimed in interviews that they were graduates of film schools at University
of Southern California and University of California at Los Angeles. UCLA's
records show Beeson applying and never attending school there, and USC has
no record of either man. Leticia first claimed that they instructed those
schools not to reveal that they attended, but when pressed he curtly
answered, "We attended film schools in L.A. That's all we'll say."
Judge Lannie Brainard, saddled with deciding whether enough evidence exists
to proceed to criminal and civil trials, watched openmouthed as scenes from
the Bumfights tape were played in her courtroom, like the one where a
homeless man named Donald Brennan is shown having sex with a woman described
as a drug-addicted prostitute, after the filmmakers paid him $100 to have
"Bumfight" tattooed on his forehead. Since then, Brennan has claimed the
tattoo is a mark of shame and the filmmakers took advantage of his alcohol
dependence to get him to agree.
Now the filmmakers are being sued by Brennan and Rufus Hannah, AKA "Rufus
the Stuntbum," for assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional
distress and civil rights violations.
"The real bums are the bums behind the camera, not the ones in front of the
camera," asserted Browne Greene, attorney for Mr. Brennan and Mr. Hannah.
"And those are the ones we're going after."
NATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO STOP HATE
Enlisting support from over 400 organizations, including the National League
of Cities, the National Organization of Women (NOW), and Volunteers of
America, NCH aims to use their report to make lawmakers and the public aware
of this grave issue, and recommend proactive measures to instigate change
and ensure protection of civil rights for everyone, regardless of their
economic circumstances or housing status.
NCH has put forth several recommendations to take action to stop hate crimes
against people experiencing homelessness. Among these steps, the National
Coalition is calling for a public statement from the U.S. Dept. of Justice
acknowledging that hate crimes and violence against homeless people is a
serious national trend, and they are also asking that agency to maintain a
national database to track these crimes. NCH is also actively working
Capitol Hill to have housing status included in pending federal hate crimes
legislation.
The Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990 (HCSA) mandates the Justice
Department to collect data from law enforcement agencies about "crimes that
manifest evidence of prejudice based upon race, religion, sexual
orientation, or ethnicity."3
The Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act, enacted as a section of the
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, defines a hate crime
as "a crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim, or in the
case of a property crime, the property that is the object of the crime,
because of the actual or perceived race, color, national origin, ethnicity,
gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person." This measure only
applies to, inter alia, attacks and vandalism which occur in national parks
and on federal property.4
The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HR 1343, S. 625),
introduced in the 107th Congress, enjoys broad bipartisan support, with 250
co-sponsors in the House and 51 co-sponsors in the Senate. These companion
bills, which are expected to be re-introduced in the current session of the
108th Congress, would strengthen existing hate crime laws two ways: 1) by
expanding the current laws to reach all cases where victims are killed or
injured due to their religion, color, national origin or race; and, 2) by
expanding the U.S. Department of Justice's ability to prosecute those who
commit violent crimes against others because on their gender, disability, or
sexual orientation.
NCH's goal is to have housing status included among classes of people
protected by the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, and all
future legislation. Because homeless people are forced to live outdoors they
are extremely vulnerable to attacks and retaliation. In many cases, these
violent acts go unpublicized and unreported, making it difficult to assess
the true situation. Often, homeless people will not report crimes committed
against them because of mental illness, substance abuse, fear of
retaliation, past incidents, or frustration with police. NCH reasons that if
homeless people know that they're protected by law, and a system is in place
to prosecute such crimes, they will be far more likely to come forward and
report hate crimes committed against them.
NCH is also calling on Congress for a General Accounting Office (GAO)
investigation into the nature and scope of hate crimes and violent acts that
occur against people experiencing homelessness.
"A GAO study is urgently needed to shed light on this frightening trend of
hate crimes and violence," asserts NCH's Michael Stoops. "These horrific
acts of violence threaten the lives of the over 3.5 million women, men and
children experiencing homelessness each year."
Currently, NCH relies on news reports and information relayed to them by
advocates, shelters, and other homeless service agencies around the country
to compile their data on hate crimes against homeless people. The National
Coalition acts as the nationwide repository of hate crimes and violence
against homeless people, but there is no systematic method of collecting and
documenting such reports. Some cases from 2002 were also omitted because the
victims were found beaten to death, but no suspects could be identified.
Additionally, the report does not take into account the large number of
sexual assaults on homeless women.
NCH's Stoops adds, "One big reason why we're calling for a GAO report is
that our report is by no means complete." He estimates that news items and
reports from local homeless advocacy agencies compiled by NCH account for
only 25-50% of the total number of such violent acts.
The GAO study would examine perpetrators' behavior, beliefs, prevention,
education and law enforcement strategies. This request has been endorsed by
over 400 local and national organizations.
For more information, including a listing of all the cities and states cited
in the report, a list of all the organizations endorsing NCH's
recommendations, and sample letters of endorsement as well as sample letters
to elected officials, please see www.nationalhomeless.org/hatecrimes.
Sources:
1 Anti-Defamation League,
http://www.adl.org/legislative_action/hatecrimes_briefing.html
2 U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, www.ojp.usdoj.gov
3 Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, www.civilrights.org
4 Anti-Defamation League,
http://www.adl.org/legislative_action/hatecrimes_briefing.html | 
