Mardi Gras: Police see hate crime in rampage
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Seattle police yesterday asked the King County prosecutor to consider a hate-crime charge against one of the young black men accused of Mardi Gras violence, saying the teen believed the attacks in Pioneer Square were a battle in a "racial war."
Khalid Adams, 17, is already in jail, charged as an adult in what prosecutors say was an unchecked rampage against Fat Tuesday revelers. But police now have asked that prosecutors add the charge of malicious harassment, the state's hate-crime statute.
The King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office is reviewing the request. "We'll have to look at all the information the police are sending over," spokesman Dan Donohoe said. "We'd have to look at it and determine whether it's legally sufficient. Beyond that, I don't think we can speculate."
Adams, who is in the King County Jail, this week pleaded not guilty to first-degree robbery and indecent liberties, both felonies. Court papers say he and other young men beat up a man and stole his wallet amid the frenzy and attacked a woman, pulling off her clothes and groping her. Police say Adams is also tied to other attacks but is not linked to the fatal assault on Kristopher Kime, the one person killed that night.
After Adams was arrested, he explained his motives to detectives, police said. He said he had been drinking in a Pioneer Square bar -- despite his age -- and had emerged into an already-violent crowd. According to the police report to prosecutors, Adams attacked people because someone hit him, and he and his friends thought the riots were a "racial war."
Racial tension surrounding the Fat Tuesday celebration has been building since police said most suspects in the violence are black. African-American leaders have said fallout from the event stereotypes the entire black community as criminals.
Yesterday, police Lt. Steve Brown, who commands the department's Mardi Gras task force, said detectives are not actively encouraging a malicious-harassment charge but are asking the prosecutor's office to consider it. If prosecutors decline, police recommend instead adding a charge of riot against Adams.
"The focus is dependent on whether it was done on the basis of the gender, race or ethnicity of the victim," Brown said. "The issue is whether it rises to that level, and (the prosecutors) are the ones who make that decision."
But to one of the people police say was attacked by Adams, the decision should be clear.
"They should all be charged with hate crimes because that's what they did," said Allison Wilson, 21, of Renton, who was beaten and injured that night along with her 24-year-old husband, Jesse. They said their attackers yelled slurs against whites.
"They're racists -- they attacked us because we were white," Wilson said. "There was no other reason. We didn't do anything to them."
The state's malicious-harassment law makes it a felony for someone to injure or threaten to injure someone "because of his or her perception of the victim's race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or mental, physical or sensory handicap."
A conviction for malicious harassment would mean at least three months in jail for a first-time offender. By comparison, Adams' robbery charge would mean three years in prison. A riot conviction would mean no more than a year in jail. Adams has a juvenile record of petty theft, assault and car prowling that would likely boost those penalties.
For prosecutors, the robbery or riot charges are much easier to prove because they don't have to show a motive, legal experts say.
"With hate crimes, you have to go more inside the perpetrator's head and show their thoughts," said Lis Wiehl, a University of Washington law professor and former federal prosecutor. "That doesn't mean prosecutors should ever shy away from it. Their main job is to pursue justice and have the charges reflect the actual crime."
And Adams' alleged statements to police would be vital to making a case, Wiehl said.
"Of course, no defendant is going to take the stand and admit they went after someone because of the color of their skin," Wiehl said. "So you have to have that circumstantial evidence."
Meantime, the case hasn't altered how police or the prosecutor's office regards the violence. They say while some attackers may have had racial motivations, that can't be said of all of them.
"This is one out of the 23 arrests we have made," police spokesman Clem Benton said. "We have said all along that if, during the course of the investigation, we should discover any malicious intent, we would investigate that. We believe that there are elements in this individual case that meet the criteria for malicious harassment."
Also yesterday, prosecutors filed a felony charge of riot against Luis O. Martinez, 40, of Seattle, alleging he and a group of other men were caught on tape smashing newspaper boxes. Court papers say Martinez also shoved a man who was videotaping the vandalism. Martinez was in the King County Jail yesterday with bail set at $10,000.
Martinez is the 18th person charged with Fat Tuesday crimes. He is the first Hispanic person and the oldest person charged. Of the 17 others, the vast majority are teenagers or in their very early 20s. One is white, one is Asian, and 15 are black.