Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 20 December 2001 — Page 6

The 'Muncie Times, December 20, 2001, page 6

NEWS BRIEFS

downplaying of hate crimes by many police agencies gets worse each year. More than 400 fewer police agencies reported hate cries to the FBI in 2000 than in 1999. And the number that reported the in 1999 dropped from those reporting in 1998. The official indifference by any police agencies to hate crimes ensures that federal officials can’t accurately gauge the magnitude of hate violence. This fosters the false public impression that hate crimes have diminished or are non-existent. While the police agencies that don’t report or minimize hate crimes bear some of the blame for the laxity in not branding hate crimes as hate crimes, so do federal officials. When the U.S. Congress passed the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990, it compelled the FBI to collect figures on hate violence. However, it did not compel police agencies to report them. Record keeping on hate crimes is still left up to the discretion of local police chiefs and city officials. Many don’t bother compiling them because they regard hate crimes as a politically loaded minefield that can tarnish their image and create even ore racial friction. They see no need to allocate more resources to enable police to recognize and combat hate violence. Many police agencies in America haven’t established hate task force units, or set specific procedures for dealing with hate crimes. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1998 was aimed at closing these loopholes and increasing the types of hate crimes prosecuted, and the penalties for them. But the measure is still frozen

in the Senate. With Congress fixated on passing and bankrolling the wave of antiterrorism laws, with provisions that come dangerously close to green lightening racial profiling and sanctioning civil liberties violations against Arab-Americans, expanded hate crimes legislation is dead. While President Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft publicly condemn hate attacks against Muslims, give.their stubborn past hostility to tought hate crimes laws, there’s little reason to expect them to do an about-face and prod Congress to pass the bill. The hate mongers that papered Chicago suburbs with fliers blaming the World Trade Center attack on minorities and Jews also but American lives at risk. Black honor student becomes racism victim WASHINGTON, D.C.~ Lance C. Holmes has never missed a day of school. His mother Aurelia, says the 12-year-old absolutely loves school. She should know. She’s an algebra teacher in the Richmond, Va., public schools. And she knows her son well. “Lance just loves school,” she said. “The teachers say how bright he is. They love him. He’s a hard worker.” And that hard work has paid off, earning the eighth grader five As and three B’s as final grades last year. When Lance mulls his career choices, he says, “maybe a lawyer, then a judge and then probably president.” Whatever he settles on,

there is little doubt that the spunky, genteel youngster will become successful. And there is no doubt that despite high grades and even higher aspirations, eventually model student such as Lance can’t avoid being stereotyped. Like many African American males, he has learned that the hard way. An honor roll student at a predominantly white Short Pump Middle School in Henrico County, Lance was sitting at his desk near the front of the classroom last March 8 when he noticed a leopard print tote bag sticking out from under the desk of his homeroom teacher, Corbin Adamson. At the time, the teacher was talking with other students. “This seemed an odd spot for a pocketbook, so I immediately picked it up and asked my teacher’s permission to take it to the Tost and found’ area,” Lance recalled in an unpublished article that he wrote about the incident. He said that after receiving his teacher’s permission, he walked to the office and left the purse in the “lost and found” department. With an office employee looking on, he said he opened the purse to search for identification. But his teacher, Corbin Adamson, later said she had “no clue” as to how the purse got to “lost and found” and that she did not recall Lance seeking her permission to take the purse to the office. “I didn’t know my purse was missing until I got a call in my classroom from someone in the office who said that a PTA parent had found my purse at one end and my wallet in another end of the lost and found,” she said. “The wallet had been taken out of the

purse. When I received it, I put it back in there.” She acknowledged that nothing was taken from either item. The wallet contained “maybe $10, a credit card, check card, checks,” while the purse held a pair of sunglasses. At a court proceeding, Bruce Watson, the principal, testified that he could find no other student that could corroborate Lance’s story of haying asked to leave the classroom with the purse. Watson said he telephoned a police officer, Kenneth Childress, who was on duty as another middle school. Within moments, Lance went from a top college prospect to a criminal suspect. Lance said he was surprised when he was called to the principal’s office around noon and asked by the principal, in the presence of Childress, whether “anything strange” had happened in homeroom. “I wouldn’t know, because I was taking a pocketbook to the lost and found,’” Lance recalled replying. When Lance’s mother arrived, he was again questioned about the incident. “Police Officer Kenneth Childress stated that I was lying and that he hopes that I get a stupid judge that will believe my story” Lance recalled. “I then asked Police Officer Kenneth Childress could I take a lie detector test and he stated that I was not worth it. Then he told me that I was being arrested for petty larceny theft.” Lance was given an inschool suspension for 3 days. At a July 9 juvenile court hearing, in which he pleaded not guilty, Lance was convicted of petty larceny and sentenced to

probation and mandatory attendance at a school designed to reform shoplifters. Lance’s mother, Aurelia, refused to give up their quest for justice. She said she dismissed their attorney Joseph S. Massie III, and hire a new one, State Sen. Henry L. Marsh III. Marsh located three of Lance’s classmates, all of them white, who agreed to testify that they heard the teacher grant Lance permission to take the purse to the lost and found department. But before they could testify on Lance’s behalf, the case against him was dismissed on appeal last month. Marsh said that he simply argued that there was no evidence of intent to steal. Having won that case, Marsh is engaged in another round of legal proceedings to have the arrest removed from his records. He believes race was the sole factor in the prosecution of the case. “I can’t imagine any logical reason that would prompt anyone to prosecute the charge against this boy,” he said. Watson and other school officials declined comment. Meanwhile, Lance underwent professional counseling over the summer and wept bitterly when it came time to return'to school this fall. Still, he has maintained his honor roll grades; he has perfect attendance and is looking to the future. He plans to attend Morehouse College in Atlanta “because that’s where Martin Luther King Jr., went.” Holmes’s mother is optimistic about Lance’s future, yet pained by the past treatment of her son. “They automatically saw his skin color and arrested him,” she says. “And that