3 San Jose State students charged with hate crime against black roommate

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/21/justice/san-jose-state-racial-bullying/index.html?sr=sharebar_twitter

(CNN) -- Three San Jose State University students in California have been charged with racially bullying their black roommate by clamping a bicycle lock around his neck and decorating their four-bedroom suite with a Confederate flag, Nazi symbols, photos of Adolf Hitler and a white board with a racial epithet, prosecutors said Thursday.

The three students -- Logan Beaschler, 18, of Bakersfield; Joseph Bomgardner, 19, of Clovis; and Colin Warren, 18, of Woodacre -- are charged with misdemeanor hate crime and battery, the Santa Clara district attorney's office said.

Neither the three students nor their attorneys could be immediately reached for comment.

Beaschler was booked in the Santa Clara County Jail on Thursday, with bail set at $15,000.

The defendants face a maximum sentence of one year in county jail if convicted, prosecutors said.

The 17-year-old roommate who was the alleged victim wasn't named by prosecutors, but he suffered a minor injury when he fought off the bike lock around his neck, prosecutors said.

"I can't believe in the year 2013 that we're talking about an African-American student being treated this way," District Attorney Jeffrey F. Rosen told CNN. "We're taking this case very seriously."

The defendants are accused of nicknaming their black roommate "Three-Fifths," an apparent reference to a U.S. constitutional provision that counted slaves as "three-fifths of all other persons," prosecutors said.

When the African-American student objected to that name, the three roommates in the campus housing began calling him "Fraction," the prosecutor's office said.

The alleged harassment began in August and lasted through October, prosecutors said.

Are we too quick to cry 'bully'?

San Jose State's president, Mohammad Qayoumi, said in a letter to the student body Thursday that the three students have been suspended.

"Let me be clear: I am outraged and saddened by these allegations. They are utterly inconsistent with our long cherished history of tolerance, respect for diversity and personal civility," Qayoumi's letter said.

There were a total of eight men living in the four-bedroom suite, but the remaining four students turned their back on the racial harassment, the prosecutor said.

"The other four were aware of this and were not upstanders and did not stand up" and allowed the harassment, Rosen said.

Parents saw the Confederate flag in the dorm suite and "the N-word scrawled on a white board," Rosen said.

When friends become bullies

At least one of the defendants tried to downplay the harassment, and the three defendants then wrote a note to the African-American roommate, asking him to join their group, Rosen said.

But the black roommate objected to the harassment and sometimes "barricaded" himself in his room, Rosen said.

"The young man in this case was terrorized. It was difficult for him to study," Rosen said. "He told them not to do this to him."

Qayoumi said the university police immediately began investigating the allegations "the day our housing staff learned of the situation."

The same day the investigation began, two of the roommates were moved to other residence halls and placed in single rooms.

"A third suite-mate, originally believed to be a bystander, was identified yesterday as an offender. We regret he was not removed from the victim's suite before today," Qayoumi said.

 

Talk about stupidity. I had to disagree with Oprah on the old racists had to die out. They are still here and some are teaching this hate to their children and grandchildren.

 

Damn! Good find, we need more postings like this around here.

 

Those three bullies are sore excuses for human beings, but the 4 who turned a blind eye to the abuse are no better. IMO they deserve to be punished as well. At some point a message has to be sent that we won't permit the acceptance of racism. Period.

The fact that parents saw what was going on in that house and apparently did nothing to stop it, infuriates me. Perfectly clear why those boys felt it was ok to do what they did. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. :smt012

 

the other four should have been kicked out as well...send them home to their rotten parents...don't refund money and give them an F in all their classes...

on top of that how is it that 8 young men living in a campus suite do not have a RA (resident advisor) dropping in on the regular to see how things are going

this is pathetic

 

did they also rape him? I dunno, maybe they should have

How a grown ass man can let a bunch of college boys "terrorize" him without any sort of pushback is beyond me

So he just took the 3/5ths stuff and finally when they were putting chains around his neck, went crying to the authorities? Shame on everyone involved, including him

Yet another fine example of black men raised by women. Proud momma's boys :roll:

Not saying he should've killed them in their sleep, but what happened to fighting back from the jump, whether it's the civilized path or otherwise?

Step one, you appeal to the authorities. Step two is prolly illegal to advise on the web

So we have two national examples of black men being cornholed by whiteboys and crying themselves to sleep (the incognito/martin case being the other). Not to mention a few nice verdicts coming up

But don't worry, the women of the world will still want to date you, because... er ... um... erm...

well at least black women still say you're men :smt023

:mrgreen:

 

This is the dumbest shit I've seen posted on here in awhile. It was fucking seven to one, he was all alone what push back did you want to see. How about looking at it like this, "I'm young I'm black I'm male and they are killing people who look like me over just looking suspicious and the authorities sanction it. Who do I turn to"
I would not be surprised if this didn't become a thing until some white person noticed and made a stink. That poor kid could have been in fear for his life and you turn it into the ridiculous moronic hyper macho bullshit that gets bm incarcerated and killed on a regular basis. How about we all breathe a sigh of relief he's not dead because that could have.gone that way.

 

How about we all breathe a sigh of relief that he's not in prison for dousing them all with gasoline and tossing a match to the place? (because he'd reeally have a hard time in prison :mrgreen

He was in fear for his life, "terrorized" and didn't have the balls to pushback? On a college campus? In the middle of CA? Where presumably there were other people walking around not in fear of their lives?

:roll:

He doesn't even have the balls to go to the authorities? I feel sorry for him, and not just because he was assaulted.

Pushback in that situation is far from hyper macho. It's called not being a flat-out bitch. Even women don't take shit like that

He prolly could've nipped that shit in the bud with the first 3/5ths comment by showing he wasn't having it. Bullies typically feel you out first. If they come to the conclusion that it's not going to be fun, 9 times out of 10 they will leave you the fuck alone.

Like I said: you call them on their shit. You go to the authorities if need be so that there's a record of what's happening for the courts. Then you prepare, and when they put their hands on you, you take care of business. But 99.9999% of the time you won't have to.

Presumably he could've even changed dorms. Just as likely, he could've had the bullies kicked out of the dorm, especially if there were witnesses. but do nothing? :mrgreen: that's crazy

Even mlk wasn't about just quietly taking shit. Even jeezus wasn't.

You guys better learn: trends happen. So you don't let fools become emboldened or start to feel they have impunity. Shit will only get muuuch worse for you if you do.

To paraphrase Sun Tzu: once you have no choice but to go to war, in a way, you've already lost.

Attitudes like what your pushing are going to make the future just like the past. Except in the past you at least had community as refuge :mrgreen:

Which brings me to another point: where were his people? He didn't even have anyone to talk about this shit with? shame shame shame

There's gotta be more to this story than what we're reading here.

But anyway, bm are the only people who just meekly accept cross-cultural bullying. If that were a korean would the story have been different? If the perpetrators had been other black men would the story have been different?

I'm telling you, that's bitch stuff. I'm not a violent person, really - there's just too much better stuff to do with your life. And I hate self-conscious machismo. But you don't just quietly take shit. That's simply the wrong solution.. That's how you end up feeling you have no other options, boiling then exploding, like chris dorner.

 

rereading the story, I'm sure there's more to it than that.

"But the black roommate objected to the harassment and sometimes 'barricaded' himself in his room, Rosen said."

Sounds like the guy had some sort of mental problem that made him particularly vulnerable, so the wolves knew they had a weak victim

 

and furthermore, that "poor kid" was a grown ass man in college :mrgreen:

And no, the stuff I suggested is not what gets bm incarcerated and killed on a regular basis.

I'd venture that bm in prison for violence associated with standing up to racism are extremely few. Perhaps you know something I don't? :mrgreen:

 

Grown ass man in college is an oxymoron. Being of legal adult age does not make you a grown ass man. In fact the dude being harassed was 17 so what are you talking about, he's a kid.
How old are you fam?

 

Here's the thing neither one of us knows what that particular campus is like and he could have said something about it could have been ignored. We don't know all the details but I will say this calling him a bitch because he didn't act the way you think you would in your head is ridiculous.

 

Just because you're in college doesn't automatically make you a tough, grown-ass man especially at 17. And if NFL football players are being bullied by teammates, and we are sympathetic, why can there be no sympathy shown to this young man?

What happened here is sickening, disgusting. I don't know how the bullies, tormentors really, live with themselves. My heart goes out to this young man.

 

I wasn't all that sympathetic toward Jonathan Martin. Thought that one was a strange story too.

Incognito is an asshole, but just like some of martin's teammates said, he's a giant, grown-ass man and should be able to able to deal with the situation

It's downright strange that all he could do is whine about it. shame shame shame

 

Good post!

I have no idea how you came to this conclusion. It is 2013 and this 17 year old guy is not the first person to go to school with white people in America.

 

Yeah and have you paid attention to the recent tenor about black males in this country as of late.

 

Humor me. I never liked bullies, but I am far more disgusted by someone that allows the shit to happen, just no excuse for that whatsoever. In my growing up years, I would always be willing to help a friend that would either fight back or a least try to get away. It is a disservice to help any male that stands there and lets someone push him around and kick his ass.

 

I feel that George Zimmerman might have done that to Trayvon Martin. Everyone knows how that turned out. If blacks tried to retaliate back from racial bullying, they would just end up losing in court and the other party would just say that the defendants acted in self-defense. Blacks fear that they're going to lose in court if the defendant is a white male, which is why they didn't do anything in retaliation. The case in Wisconsin was different though.

http://www.blackbluedog.com/2013/07...illing-black-teen-he-claimed-robbed-his-home/

 

Damn fam dude may have been afraid he's 17 and out numbers 7 to 1. I won't begin to speculate how I would react because I don't know most people don't. My issue is because he's male we expect something different than if were a girl. If this were a 17 year old girl being bullied 7 to 1 you'd have a totally different position. I won't pretend to know what that shit might be like. Young possibly far from home on a campus where you don't know anyone and you have mofos messing with you like it's Mississippi in the fifties, that shit is crazy. But instead of our compassion we get other black men wondering why he didn't "man up" and do something. Sad

 

You make a point, poor parenting could be a possibility. Most of the youth within our race are raised only by women, in some cases, two black women. However medulla, when black women "terrorize" black men, the black men do tend to fight back so it's not like even our own women have the power to run over us.