Hate crimes common theme is hate, not race

A town-hall meeting has been scheduled for 6 p.m. Aug. 30, Central American Solidarity Association (CASA) of Maryland's Baltimore City offices. It will be conducted in Spanish and will address concerns from the community and discuss crime prevention tips. Spanish-speaking police officers also will be present.

Martin Reyes, 51, was beaten to death Aug. 21 by a mentally unstable 19-year-old man who reported that he committed the crime because he hated Mexicans. The alleged killer, Jermaine Holley, had been ordered to appear in court on charges that he violated his probation from a June 2009 drug arrest and conviction.

On July 13, District Court Judge L. Robert Cooper issued, and then rescinded, a warrant ordering Holley's arrest, according to the Baltimore Sun.

“When elected officials use hateful language to describe immigrants, we should not be surprised when criminals understand that as a declaration of open-season on my people,” said Gustavo Torres, CASA’s executive director. “We weep today for Martin Reyes, a friend of CASA who was murdered for being Latino, and commit in his name to eradicating the hatred and violence affecting Latinos, African-Americans, and other city residents.”

Activists attending the press conference blamed the lack of an explicit policy banning police cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement making immigrant residents unlikely to come forward and share information with law enforcement.

Reyes was a member of CASA. The group held a press conference Aug. 24 two-blocks from where the murder took place.

“I frequently speak to parishioners who are victimized or witness a crime yet do not feel comfortable calling the police,” said Father Bob Wotjek, who pastors a majority-immigrant parish in Baltimore. “Unfortunately, every immigrant knows of a case where someone was stopped by the police for a minor traffic infraction and ended up in immigration custody and if I were able to point to an explicit policy whereby Baltimore police did not collaborate with ICE except for serious crimes, it would be enormously easier to convince people to come forward.”

Hating someone because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, faith or lack thereof, or anything else is a terrible thing. It destroys the hater inside and sometimes destroys victims as in the Reyes case.

But where was CASA when Robert Krentz, an Arizona rancher, was murdered by an illegal in March? Okay, that is an Arizona crime and CASA is a Maryland group.

So where was the solidarity association when Lila Meizell was beaten, then burned alive, by immigrants in Montgomery County? Immigrants she had employed who thanked her by attempting to bilk her out of about $7,000.

Where was press conference for Carlos Millian or Tai Lam when they were murdered by Hispanics in the Washington suburbs?

Murder has one thing in common—hate. The challenge is to educate and love. Calling people names and refusing to debate, as CASA does, is not part of a constructive solution. It is time for the group to consider a change in policy.