NAACP urges authorities to charge white students with felony hate-crime
The NAACP is calling on prosecutors to file felony hate-crime charges against four white students who allegedly harassed a black student at San Jose State University.
The students currently face misdemeanor hate-crime and battery charges.
“This is not simple hazing or bullying. This is obviously racially based terrorism targeted at their African American roommate,” Reverend Jethroe Moore II, president of the San Jose/Silicon Valley NAACP said in a statement Saturday. “The community will not stand idly by and allow for any student of color to be terrorized simply due to the color of his skin.”
According to a police report, the white students taunted their freshman dorm-mate with racial slurs, outfitted their dormitory suite with a Confederate flag, barricaded the victim in his room and placed a U-shaped bicycle lock around his neck.
In a statement released Saturday, prosecutors wrote that they “filed the appropriate charges in this case, based upon the evidence.”The actions of those in question were condemned by university officials, and the four students were suspended pending a full investigation into the incident.
The students charged are Logan Beaschler and Collin Warren, both 18; Joseph Bomgardner, 19; and an unidentified juvenile. NAACP officials are scheduled to hold a campus news conference today to condemn the racially charged actions.
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