Everything is isolated when you refuse to make the connection
Quote of note:
On Tuesday, city officials said the shopping center attack was an isolated incident.
So is the level of concern.
Councilwoman Barbara Williamson said the incident was caused by "a couple of kids with too much time on their hands," and called on their parents to discipline them.
"What they need is for their parents to put them over a knee and give them a good spanking," Williamson said. "I'm talking as a mother, and if they were my kids, that's exactly what I'd do."
And what would you do if it were four Black kids that jacked a white kid selling newspapers for no reason? Or if it were your kid that got jacked?
I'm not looking for perfect foresight. I'm looking for white folks to face the same repercussions for their actions as Black folks do.
4 White Youths Held in Black Teen's Beating
Simi Valley officials condemn the racial hate crime while observers applaud speedy arrests.
By Gregory W. Griggs and Catherine Saillant
Times Staff Writers
December 8, 2004
A black 17-year-old was chased and beaten by four white youths as he sold newspaper subscriptions in a Simi Valley shopping center Monday night in an incident that police are calling a purely racial hate crime.
Four teenage boys — three of them from Simi Valley — were arrested in connection with the assault, and police said they recovered skinhead and white power racial paraphernalia in one suspect's car.
The violent episode drew swift condemnation from city officials who have often complained that the affluent suburb suffers unfairly from the image that it is plagued by racism.
To critics, that image was firmly planted 12 years ago, when a Simi Valley jury cleared Los Angeles police officers in the videotaped beating of Rodney G. King, sparking massive rioting. Although only two jurors came from Simi Valley, officials have struggled ever since to repair the city's reputation.
"Simi Valley absolutely will not tolerate racially motivated crimes," said Mayor Paul Miller, the city's former police chief. "A small group of bullying thugs made a horrible decision….The City Council reacts to such a crime with a firm hand."
