News Roundup for July 21, 2011
White supremacist Mark Anthony Stroman was executed Wednesday evening for his post-9/11 revenge spree. That spree left two South Asian men dead and one Bangladeshi man wounded in acts of revenge for the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Police in Colorado Springs, Colo., are investigating the second possible anti-gay hate crime in a month. Two homeless men were reportedly stabbed as their assailants made anti-gay slurs. This follows an earlier incident in which at least one man was beaten because he was thought to be gay.
Two New Mexico men have pled guilty to federal hate crime charges for their part in the branding of a Navajo man. Paul Beebe, 27, and Jesse Sanford, 25, admitted to drawing sexually and racially offensive pictures on 22-year-old Vincent Kee, and then branding him with a swastika. Kee reportedly has fetal alcohol syndrome and was considered an easy target. Beebe and Sanford will reportedly receive up to 8 ½ years in prison for the crime.
An Arkansas pair accused of burning a cross in front of the apartment of an African-American man pleaded guilty to civil rights violation charges. Tony and James Bradley Branscum face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for their harassment of the victim. No reason was given for their choice of the victim.
The son of former National Socialist Movement West Coast leader Jeff Hall is expected to enter a plea this week in the shooting death of his father. The ten-year-old boy claims that Hall physically and verbally abused him regularly, and he suspected Hall of cheating on his mother. Prosecutors are conducting psychological evaluations of the boy in order to determine the proper punishment and treatment for him.
Two suspects have been arrested for allegedly assaulting an Asheville, N.C., man because they thought he was gay. Lewis Hopkins, 25, and an unnamed 15-year-old defendant are accused of being in the group that used anti-gay statements before assaulting the man, breaking bones in his face. Investigators are labeling the assault a hate crime.
