We've been publishing a series of articles on the general topic of Hate Crimes and Assaults here on the Loper Website. As a part of this series, we are interviewing people with something to share - insight, opinion, even more questions - and will publish these interviews from time to time. The framework for the interviews is a questionnaire, but we will not slavishly force each interview to follow a prescribed format - ideas flow too freely for that.

Dave Sagarin Interview with Kevin Cox

What is a hate crime?
A hate crime is a crime that is motivated by a feeling of hatred for a characteristic of a group that the victim belongs to - I think in Virginia it's race, national origin, religion, … and 'condition of disability.' It doesn't include sexual orientation or gender … [If I thought there should be hate crime laws] it should include them ….

Should these laws provide a sentence enhancement?
No! It's risky to let the government penalize people for what they think and feel.

I do have a problem with the idea of protecting groups - someone who assaults a woman because he hates his ex-wife should get the same punishment as someone who assaults [a woman] because she is a woman, or because she's black or whatever ….

If there's outrage because the penalties were not stiff enough [for the assailants in the recent series of assaults on UVa students], maybe there should just be stiffer penalties [for these kinds of assaults].

Did you know any of the victims or the assailants?
I know one of the victims, and to support her I went to the trial of [one assailant] who plead guilty. Because the plea had been made, they read a statement into the record (it isn't public because of the age of the kid)

I was shocked at what I heard.

This was definitely a conspiracy to assault people, to beat them up - going out in two vehicles, keeping in touch by cell phone - keeping an eye out for police while they were looking for potential victims.

Two were the ringleaders - I think they should have been tried as adults - [they] were responsible for the conspiracy - were responsible for the other people committing assaults that might not otherwise have committed.

The description by [Commonwealth's Attorney] Elizabeth Killeen of [one boy's] behavior - in a car returning from a [night] basketball game at Western Albemarle [High School] he said he was anxious (I'm paraphrasing from what I remember, the transcript is sealed) he was anxious to hurt a woman, a weak woman, and they drove around until they found a victim, they beat her up, threw her on the ground!

I was watching him while this was being read - he reacted, in the courtroom - he grimaced, but I couldn't tell if he was reacting because it was the truth and he just didn't want to hear it, or if he was truly ashamed at what he had done.

Comments on issues of race in Charlottesville
I am annoyed with Alvin Edwards - he's made some terrible comments about Caucasians. And I am concerned that [forming committees to look out for the assailants and] giving money condones the violence.

[After these assaults and the public discussion] there's evidence among my African-American friends - all my friends - that there's a renewed sense of uneasiness about race relations.

And the truth is, in America we're doing much better!

And I know there's much resentment for the way white society treated blacks - but taking it out on people who had nothing to do with segregation only insures that resentment will stay alive another generation.

I'm not a black person and I've never experienced the terrible thing that racism has been from whites in our society. But I am a feeling, compassionate, and knowledgeable person - and I am qualified to comment on racism - as a feeling, intelligent human being to condemn it.

If I don't acknowledge it, comment on it, my silence is complicit with the racists.

[The older generation of African American] people need to move on: "Alright, that was in the past - I'm going to forgive you." (May 8, 2002)

Asked to characterize himself for the reader:
I've lived in Charlottesville since I was 10 and I hope to live here until the day I die. I like Charlottesville a lot. I walk to my job [at UVa] every day, and I hate to see discord and disharmony sown because somebody thinks they're a victim of something that I didn't do.