Attacks on Homeless Bring Push on Hate Crime Laws

[groovedaddy]

WASHINGTON — With economic troubles pushing more people onto the streets in the last few years, law enforcement officials and researchers are seeing a surge in unprovoked attacks against the homeless, and a number of states are considering legislation to treat such assaults as hate crimes.

This October, Maryland will become the first state to expand its hate-crime law to add stiffer penalties for attacks on the homeless.

At least five other states are pondering similar steps, the District of Columbia approved such a measure this week, and a like bill was introduced last week in Congress.

A report due out this weekend from the National Coalition for the Homeless documents a rise in violence over the last decade, with at least 880 unprovoked attacks against the homeless at the hands of nonhomeless people, including 244 fatalities. An advance copy was provided to The New York Times.

Sometimes, researchers say, one homeless person attacks another in turf battles or other disputes. But more often, they say, the assailants are outsiders: men or in most cases teenage boys who punch, kick, shoot or set afire people living on the streets, frequently killing them, simply for the sport of it, their victims all but invisible to society.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/us/08homeless.html?th&emc=th

[kelly1mm]

1. FYI - this bill was sponsored by a Republican

State Senator Alex Mooney (R) Frederick County. He has been introducing it for a few years now. Been stopped before by R's who don't like hate crime enhancements and D's who don't like their preferred groups to be lumped in with the homeless.