Hate Crime Suspected at First Unitarian
Courier Life confirms a tip BHB received earlier this week about a possible hate crime at the First Unitarian Church on Monroe Place:
Yournabe.com : A possible hate crime stained an otherwise calm weekend in Brooklyn Heights, as a swastika and other scrawl was discovered inside a Monroe Place church.
“Very inappropriate statements, and a swastika” were discovered painted inside the First Unitarian Universalist Church, between Pierrepont Street and Monroe, according to Captain Mark DiPaolo, the commanding officer of the 84th Precinct.
Some time between Sept. 13 and 14, a person entered the school portion of the church and also committed a burglary, snatching some cash andmusical equipment, DiPaolo said. Precinct cops responded to the scene on Monday, along with officers from the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force.
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Posted : September 19th, 2009 at 10:53 pm by Homer Fink under Brooklyn Heights.
Tags:11201, first unitarian church, hate crime
Comments: 4
Comments
Comment from Michael O’Neill
Time: September 21, 2009, 1:46 am
Are you kidding by saying a hate crime is suspected? Why the reluctance to call it for what it can only be? Clearly it is a hate crime, as a defacing a church wall with a swastica is intrinsicly and indisputiably a hate crime by both Fed statutes as well as NY State statutes. To any UU, a swastica is necessarily a well knownl symbol of Nazi evil.
Even the defacing of a church wall with “Kilroy Was Here.” is a hate crime under Fed hate crime statutes. Call up the Brooklyn DA and question them if they are going to carry their duties charging a hate crime, even if there is no suspect or a very remote chance of finding the culprit.
It is very important that we not trivialize hate crimes with impossible to be met criteria of absolute empirical evidence such as a video of the event. Sensible, common sensible criteria is entirely sufficient as it is with any crime. The right wing is now carrying out a ideiological campaign against the legitimacy of the very concept of hate crime as a liberal ploy to destroy Christianity and assert the equal rights of dispised minorities like blacks, Latinos, Jews, homosexuals, the disabled. We must fight back and fight the police culture that generally supports the tenets of the Conservative Party –mo
Comment from Against Hate
Time: September 22, 2009, 10:15 am
So if you had the tip earlier in the week, why not report it?
In any event, Cable News 12 has the video coverage:
http://www.news12.com/articleDetail.jsp?articleId=235958&position=5&news_type=news&rand=59418467. You need your Time Warner account number to get access, though.
Comment from William Spier
Time: September 22, 2009, 7:23 pm
A swatiska on a Unitarian Church? Do some idiots know something about Unitarians that I don’t? Swastikas are not trivial garffiti and may be statuatory hate crimes; but I am not convinced the idiots who did this spewed their torrents of hate at Unitarians in particular. Even Limbaugh never called Unitarians closet socialists O(which they are.)
Comment from nabeguy
Time: September 22, 2009, 9:14 pm
I remember walking out of my house one day in the summer of 1968 to see the following spray-painted on the walls of PS 8:
WHITE POWER
KKK
VOTE FOR WALLACE
Admittedly, not a church, but disturbing nonetheless to an impressionable 13-year-old such as myself, especially given that it was out in the open for everyone to see. It wasn’t until I learned that the culprit was the local idiot racist (who was no more than 13 himself) that I began to put a perspective on the situation. The idiot in question went on to an illustrious career as the neighborhood drunk who died of alcohol-poisoning at the age of 22. Stupid is as stupid does.
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