Rural Areas, WSU Fight Hate Crimes Whitman County Residents, Police React To Rash Of Incidents
A rash of rural hate crimes is bolstering a drive to fight prejudice in Whitman County.
“They are tragic for our community, just as for any community that has to endure this nonsense,” Whitman County Prosecutor James Kaufmann said Tuesday.
Authorities have “aggressively investigated and prosecuted these crimes,” Kaufmann said.
Three teenagers were arrested last weekend for spray-painting racial slurs on a Chinese-American shopkeeper’s truck in Rosalia.
In tiny Lamont, about 70 miles northwest of Pullman, two boys have admitted leaving a swastika cut from a pizza box on a minister’s porch on March 7, then setting off an M-80 firecracker.
Sheriff’s deputies also are investigating a report by a Native American woman from Malden, Wash., that she was forced off a county road the night of March 9 by the drivers of two cars.
She told police at least one of the drivers was wearing a white sheet and hoodlike pillowcase.
Whitman County Sheriff Steven Tomson said the incidents are isolated and not the work of any organized extremist group.
“The recent series of hate-bias crimes has shocked and appalled citizens throughout Whitman County,” Tomson said in a prepared statement.
They come on the heels of several hate crimes at Washington State University. Last fall, swastikas and racist, sexist and homophobic messages began appearing in campus buildings. A few weeks ago, derogatory messages about blacks and sorority women were left on a dorm bulletin board.
The community has rallied to address the problem with several human rights initiatives and formation of the Pullman Human Relations Commission, a joint effort of the city, chamber of commerce, school district and WSU.
The commission grew out of a city “livability committee” studying ways to improve Pullman’s quality of life, Mayor Mitch Chandler said.
WSU also is planning to fight back with an anti-harassment hot line. It would document all complaints, forwarding those of a criminal nature to police.
“Some of this has really coalesced in the last 10 days. There’s still some fine-tuning because there are so many different players, but it looks pretty promising,” said Cindy Empey, assistant dean of students.
“I think it’s a great way for us to join together as a community to make sure we respond to these situations in a way that’s caring but also (confrontational)”
Deputies worked overtime to make arrests in the Rosalia case, said Tomson, who is seeking maximum punishment for the crimes.
A 15-year-old boy was asked to leave Sung Moon Na’s grocery store after being accused of shoplifting.
According to deputies, the boy returned with two others and spray-painted Na’s truck with an anarchy sign (an “A” inside a circle with a line drawn through it) and a racial epithet.
The 15-year-old was arrested for malicious harassment, criminal conspiracy and third-degree malicious mischief.
Benjamin Goldsmith, 18, was booked in the county jail on suspicion of second-degree rendering criminal assistance, conspiracy to commit a hate crime and third-degree malicious mischief.
The other juvenile, a 16-year-old, was arrested for second-degree rendering criminal assistance and conspiracy to commit a hate crime.
In the Lamont case, the victims consider the incident a prank, not a hate crime.
“It was just dumb junior-high stuff,” said Ginny Rajala, the pastor’s wife. “Dumb, but not malicious.”
The pranksters, a 13-year-old boy and his 14-year-old friend, apologized. They said they chose the Rajala house because it’s across from the city park and the pastor wasn’t home.
While the family isn’t pushing for prosecution, Whitman County authorities are talking tough.
“The law does not exclude people from being dumb,” Undersheriff Dalton Lewey said. “You can minimize it to the extent that it loses its educational component.”
, DataTimes