A question of hate
As a result, a 17-year-old Shiloh High School student is likely to become the first person prosecuted under Georgia's year-old, so-called "hate crime law."
Michael Keith Bargeron, a white senior who is accused of intentionally hitting Keishuna Young, 15, with his car on Jan. 16, stands to earn an extra five years in prison and additional fines if a jury is convinced he attacked the girl out of racial hatred because she is black.
According to police, Bargeron yelled racial slurs at Keishuna and a friend as he drove by with a carload of friends, then returned a few minutes later and tried to ram her with his car. Keishuna, who has said she jumped onto the car hood, received bloody scrapes on her hip, wrist and elbow when she rolled off the car onto the pavement.
Although Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter hasn't committed to invoking the hate-crime law, he hints strongly that he will. "It is certainly a possibility. The act was clearly racially motivated," he says. Bargeron remains in jail on aggravated assault charges. In denying bond, Gwinnett Chief Magistrate Warren Davis lectured the teen on his "disgusting behavior" in the incident and a lack of remorse afterward.
Both Porter and the law's author, state Sen. Vincent Fort, D-Atlanta, say this is just the type of case the law was designed to address.
"This is a classic incident and it would be the first time this law is applied," says Fort, who is watching the Snellville case carefully.
Formally named the "Anti-domestic Terrorism Act," the law provides for enhanced penalties in cases where a jury determines that the defendant intentionally selected a victim or object because of specific bias or prejudice. Regardless of whether an act is committed by an organized hate group or an individual acting alone, the law targets anyone whose motive is hate-based.
There is a Federal Hate Crime Prevention Act in place, but it is limited in its reach, stipulating in part that the victim must be engaged in a federally protected act, such as being in school or voting. Consequently, most states have seen it necessary to add additional laws. Georgia is the 46th state to adopt such a measure.
Fort believes the law will serve as a deterrent to what he sees as a rise in hate crime incidents in Georgia, but whether the law will work as intended could be difficult to document.
"Deterrents are almost always impossible to measure," Porter concedes. "But the law will certainly send a message about our level of tolerance -- that if hate crimes happen, citizens will know that the government will support them."
Setting a standard for what society will tolerate may be the most important aspect of the law, says Erik Friedly, spokesperson for Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard's office, which has its own hate crimes task force. "We certainly hope it will make people think twice before taking those kinds of actions," Friedly says. Vernon Keenan, associate director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation agrees, "I think the law brings into focus the seriousness of such crimes. We know that these incidents escalate if they go unaddressed."
While most sources agree that Georgia is not among the worst states in terms of hate crimes, there seems to be disagreement between Fort, watchdog groups, other legislators and local law enforcement agencies on whether such incidents are actually increasing. Unfortunately, incomplete reporting practices make statistics difficult to track. Last year, 36 hate crime incidents were reported in Georgia by the mere nine law-enforcement agencies that keep such records. By contrast, 353 agencies report hate crime incidents in Tennessee and 209 in Missouri.
According to Fulton County Police Chief Coleman, "The importance of the legislation is that statistically we can start keeping track. It is a good tool for law enforcement; it helps us work with and identify hate crimes."
On a national level, the FBI reported a total of 7,876 hate crime incidents in the U.S., ranging from harassment to property damage, vandalism and murder. At present, Gwinnett police do not keep track of hate crimes and have not dedicated an investigator to handle such cases.
However, the Bargeron case is certainly not metro Atlanta's first exposure to hate-based crimes. Pastor Eugene Shin of the Siloam Korean Church of Atlanta in Norcross says they have had several incidents of vandalism, such as broken windows and painted swastikas on parking signs outside. "These types of things happen, and they are both frightening and sad," he says.
In 1999, the Greater Atlanta Vedic Center, a Hindu Temple in Lilburn, had five cases of racially motivated vandalism, one in which a window was broken and an obscenity written in mud on the wall. Down the street from the temple, someone spray-painted three Nazi swastikas and the phrase "go home" on the walls of a Hispanic church.
In 1997, a suspected hate-related arson fire destroyed the Galilee Missionary Baptist Church in Marietta and in 1995, 18-year-old Snellville resident Kevin Lee Fulcher, a proclaimed member of the Skinheads for White Power, was convicted of kidnapping, beating and robbing a young Korean man.
The incident has shaken and divided the Shiloh area. "We were just in complete shock," says Karen Young, Keishuna's mother. "I just feel hurt, pain and terrible disappointment. I did not think this type of thing was going on in the community."
Young acknowledges that her daughter "has now told me there were several other times that cars would drive by and they would shout the 'N' word. It is apparently said all the time."
However, many Shiloh students and parents seem to believe Bargeron was provoked, evidence that the incident may have stirred deep tensions in a mostly white school district that has seen a sharp influx of black students in the past few years.
Shiloh PTSA president Jane Studler says the school has gotten a black eye from the incident and has been unfairly raked over the coals by the local media. What's been overlooked, she says, is that the incident "wasn't just a one-way street; there was some aggravation prior to the incident," echoing a rumor circulating among white Shiloh students that Keishuna and her friend had a hand in initiating the confrontation.
People generally are disappointed by the incident, but "I never felt like there was a race problem in the school," says Mike Quigg, a white Shiloh senior. "It was just one stupid kid who did one stupid thing."
Teachers have brought up the issue in class, but among his friends, Quigg says it hasn't really been discussed. However, blacks and whites at Shiloh rarely hang together. In the lunchroom, there are the black tables and white tables. Few students cross the color lines, Quigg says.
The hate crimes law itself has its share of critics. Last year, all five of Gwinnett's state senators voted against the law, including Sen. Billy Ray (R-Lawrenceville). "I have a general problem with the concept," he says. "Here, we actually have to get into the minds of people to determine the motivation, and that's hard to do."
Topside senators were split down the middle over the issue. Sen. Thomas Price (R-Roswell), who voted against it, says he is concerned that the victim of a hate crime is treated differently than the victim of a non-hate crime. "Why should one victim be more important than another victim?" he asks.
Daniel Carver of Cornelia, a former high-ranking officer with the Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, says there should be no such thing as a hate crime law. "No crime is a love crime and [Bargeron] should have no extra time because [the victim] was black."
But supporters say hate-based crimes should be dealt with more harshly because of their potential larger impact on minority groups.
"It is terrorism because they are criminal acts intended to strike fear into an entire community and an entire country, as opposed to a criminal act which is for monetary gain or hurting an individual," says the GBI's Keenan.
Consider the dragging death of a black man chained to a pick-up truck by three white Texans. Matthew Shepard in Wyoming, tortured and murdered because he was gay, or 21-year-old white supremacist Benjamin Smith who killed two people and wounded nine in Indiana and Illinois in a shooting spree targeting minorities and Jews.
The law also sends a message to organized hate groups. In 1999, there were more than 450 active hate groups in the United States. Georgia is home to Klan groups, Christian identity groups and even Black separatist groups.
John D. Elliot, president of the Greater Atlanta Interfaith Alliance, says members of the American Nazi party have distributed The New Order, a neo-Nazi newspaper, in a Duluth neighborhood and others have placed flyers on windshields, and hate stickers around the county. In Marietta, The Truth at Last claims to be the last segregationist newspaper left in Georgia.
Jay Kaiman, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in Atlanta, agrees, "We're monitoring 250 Web pages in the U.S., but there's more. There's about 30 active in our region."
Some of them, such as the white supremacist group World Church of the Creator, targets its messages specifically to youngsters, he says.
"Today, teens can just pull up hate group messages on the Internet," laments Karen Young. "We see the issue of Columbine again and again. If we don't find something to get to the soul of these children, they will turn to hate. Those people (hate groups) are there and available -- they are doing their jobs better than parents -- and that is scary."
Still, no one has suggested Bargeron is linked to any organized hate group. Kaiman describes the alleged attack as one of "mischief."
"This kid's got a tough situation," he says. "I mean, did he really know what he was doing? But, it is still a hate crime and not to be excused. He has to pay the price and people have to see him paying the price."
Kaiman, who has been leading diversity training courses at the invitation of Shiloh officials, says teachers at the school are treating even racial jokes and stereotyping more seriously.
Young hopes the incident will serve as a catalyst to teach and educate young people to have respect for each other. She says she is saddened for Bargeron who is fighting for the future that could have been his. "He was a senior; he should have been graduating. Instead, it is two children harmed and the devastation of two families."
