Civil Rights Case Summary

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Another case of a hate crime being committed by a white supremacist is the Overland Park Jewish Community Campus shooting in April of 2014 (Stucker & Shoichet, 2014) (Global Terrorism Database, 2016) (“Kansas Shooting”, 2014). An anti-Semitic man arrived at the Overland Park Jewish Community Campus and killed an elderly man and the man's grandson who were visiting; though this was assumed to be a hate crime, meant to end the life of two Jewish people, both victims were actually of the Christian faith. The shooter was a leader of a North Carolina based section of the KKK. He was also a very well-known anti-Semitic, running for Congressional office twice, though not being elected, and often posted to a forum online that called for the extermination …show more content…
Federally supported segregation was a thing of the past, though “race mixing” was still not okay with some citizens. This was the issue in the case of a man shooting and killing two African American men jogging with two white women (“Avowed Racist Is Convicted”, 1981) (Global Terrorism Database, 2016). Along with the death of the two men, one of the white women was injured by a bullet fragment. The shooter’s defense was that he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, however, the man was said to have been lying in wait in a field for a few hours before the time of the shooting. The man was an avowed racist and although the evidence that got his conviction was circumstantial, it was enough for the jury to determine his guilt. On federal charges, the shooter was charged with depriving the civil rights of the two men killed; he did this by denying them the ability to be in the park by taking their life. The man was sentenced to two consecutive life terms. The shooter was also charged with a handful of other murders, including the killing of black man and white woman in 1979, and with the murder of two black men in 1980. He was also suspected to have been the shooter in the Vernon E. Jordan Jr. Shooting case. The shooter actually confessed to around 10 major crimes (including homicide and attempted homicide), and the shooting of …show more content…
They have already been discussed in this paper, however, it is important to note that they are more than just people committing crimes that do not directly harm another person. The Ku Klux Klan is a group of white men that promote the spread of hate and white supremacy and often share ties with Neo-Nazis. In 1980, two members of the Ku Klux Klan in Chattanooga, Tennessee were acquitted after shooting at a group of people and injuring four African-American women aged 50 to 74 (“Klansman Convicted”, 1980) (Global Terrorism Database, 2016) (“MLK Shootings”, n.d.). There were three men in the truck at the time, and the only man charged was the one who actually shot the shotgun out of the window. That man received 20 months in prison and was fined $225. Despite the men being obvious members of the KKK, and one man being the Imperial Wizard, only one man was convicted. The jury was made up entirely of white people. The men claimed to be shooting to bring notice to some crosses they had set fire to in a predominantly black community, however, they also said they were shooting into a crowd of people indiscriminately. The excuses made were not ones that should have been accepted, but they were when brought before a jury. The fact that the men were able to get away with aiding someone in shooting someone is not something that is right or fair or just. It is also unreasonable that their excuse was