This, from the Associated Press, is the most egregious example of burying the lede I’ve seen in many a day:
Authorities said Tuesday they are considering hate crime charges in the case of a woman who was tortured while being held captive for at least a week, and they are investigating the possibility that she was lured by a man she met on the Internet.
The victim was repeatedly called a racial slur while her captors sexually abused, beat and stabbed her, her mother said.
Six people, all white, including a mother and son and a mother and daughter, were arrested in connection with the alleged abduction of the 20-year-old black woman. …
Here is more on this awful story from The Smoking Gun:
the woman, who apparently had been held for more than a week, had four stab wounds in her left leg, bruised eyes, and had been repeatedly sexually assaulted and humiliated. … Brewster’s son Bobby forced the woman to eat dog and rat feces, according to one complaint filed in Logan County Magistrate Court. The victim, who is now hospitalized, was raped at knifepoint, choked with a cable cord, and had her hair pulled and cut during the ordeal.
My God, this story is horrific. But why in the name of all that’s holy would you focus on the “hate crime” aspect of it? Talk about woefully misplaced priorities. She was allegedly kidnapped, raped, stabbed, molested, brutalized, tortured, enslaved, strangled, forced to eat animal feces, etc. ? but out of all that, what really horrifies the AP was that she was called the n-word?
Big frigging deal authorities are considering prosecuting it as a hate crime! What message will that send to the “haters” out there, anyway? If you’re going to commit kidnapping, rape, torture, stab, and strangle someone, you better not use racial slurs against them, or you will really be in trouble and we are not kidding?
