Hate Crime?

Ok, I've go no time today and meetings non-stop but I ran by the office for 20 minutes so I could write this blog and get it off my chest.  I'm hoping to squeeze my thoughts into this post before I have to head out to the next appointment.  Please excuse any rambling or unpolished thoughts - I won't have much time to proof this before posting.

So, unless you live under a rock you have heard about the possible hate crime at a McDonalds in Baltimore on April 18.  If you haven't, here's the long and short of it.  A transgender woman, Chrissy Lee Polis went to use the women's restroom at a McDonalds and was attacked by two teenagers as she exited the rstroom after having done her business.  For the duration of the attack an employee of the store recorded the whole event and can be heard laughing on the video. 

At first glance this looks like it could have definitely been a hate crime.  But something bothered me about the whole thing when I read a news article today in the Norman Transcript about this particular case.  Polis stated in a couple of different articles I've seen that the fight started because the attacker didn't want Polis talking to the attacker's boyfriend.  So I wanted the full story and kept digging.  I found this video on youtube and if you scroll to the 5 minute, 45 second time stamp you can see an interview given by Polis accounting the events leading up to the beating.  In it she says that the attackers assaulted her because of the fact that she had previously spoken for a few seconds with one of their boyfriends.  At no time does she mention that they said anything about her transgender status.  Take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMjqxMrIRtA

The entire video is worth watching but the Polis's interview is most interesting to me.  I'm not saying that what happened to this young woman wasn't horrible.  And I'm not saying that the attackers (as well as any employees who stood by and didn't do so much as call the police) shouldn't be held responsible but I really think that the punishment should fit the crime.  But based on the victim's own statement this was not a hate crime. 

Now, I will add a caveat that I've heard that Miss Polis has changed her story a couple of times so maybe this isn't a full accounting of the events.  But I think law enforcement should certainly tread lightly and that we as a public should not be so quick to jump on this "hate crime" bandwagon simply because the victim happened to be transgender.  If the clip above is to be believed, her transgender status had nothing to do with the attack - and it's Polis herself telling us that. 

Anyway, I can't claim to know what actually happened at the store.  All I intend for anyone to take from this blog (which is really me just rambling because I had to get this off my chest) is that there are actual hate crimes occuring all the time in our country and around the world.  I don't want to see us trivialize the hate crime status by attaching it to every victim who happens to be gay, or black, or transgender or muslim.  Let's make sure we respect the actual victims of hate crimes enough to scrutinize these cases before labeling them as such.