From the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Fox TV,

Authorities say four men lured a 24-year-old man with intellectual disabilities from his home near Minneapolis to a remote area last weekend, where they tortured him for hours over two days and left him for dead.

Criminal complaints say the torture included tying Justin Hamilton to a tree, beating him and burning him with cigarette lighters. His mother said she was told he was tied to a motorcycle and dragged 200 feet.

The four men were charged with assault and kidnapping in connection with the attacks, which authorities characterized as “savage,” and were being held in the Dakota County Jail. One of the men is an employee of an organization that works with disabled adults.

Authorities said they are still investigating the motive for the attacks, but said the men allegedly accused the victim of assaulting a 16-year-old girl. Charges against the girl are expected.

Related stories:

Second teen sentenced for torturing disabled woman – Kentucky Post

Teen gets 39 years in torture attack – Cincinnati Inquirer

From the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times:

A homeless man died in Los Angeles after being doused with gasoline and set on fire. A police spokesman said the man, who had lived peacefully on the streets in the dense residential neighborhood for more than 20 years, was believed to have been mentally ill. An excerpt:

A man in his 20s was seen throwing gasoline on the man, chasing him, throwing more on him and running from the scene, said Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz. Scorch marks stained a wall Friday where the man was burned.

The burning horrified even officers who routinely witness violent crimes, Diaz said.

“To murder somebody who’s probably suffering from mental illness issues and not bothering anyone – just a poor wretch on the street – you’ve got to be a soulless nitwit to do something like this,” he said.

Related story from the Associated Press: Ten years after the murder of Matthew Shepard, there is no federal hate crime legislation extending to sexual orientation or disability. A bill that passed the U.S. House last year would have extended existing hate crime law to include sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability.

See also: Cruel end for LA homeless man — Los Angeles Times

(Danette Kuoch lights a candle at a makeshift shrine where the man was killed; Los Angeles Times photo)

From the [UK] Telegraph, BBC, [UK] Independent:

Sir Ken MacDonald (left), the UK’s highest ranking prosecutor, said this week that disability hate crime is widespread and the criminal justice system is failing to address it. He urged UK police and prosecutors to seek tougher sentences against those who victimize people with disabilities.

“This is a scar on the conscience of criminal justice,” he said in a speech. “All institutions involved in criminal justice, including my own, share the responsibility.”

Macdonald said the biggest barrier to effective prosecution is a failure by law enforcement personnel to perceive that people with disabilities are targets of systematic hostility and prejudice. A 2003 law in the UK allows courts to punish offenders more severely if a crime is motivated by a victim’s disability or sexual orientation, but the measure is rarely used.

Research by the charity Mencap says people with learning disabilities in the UK live in fear and face harassment on a regular basis. The UK has seen a number of murders and acts of violence against people with disabilities over the past year.

See also: This hatred is borne out of fear of disability — by Ian Macrae in the [UK] Indendependent. An excerpt:

Disabled people’s impairments frighten people because they show them what they could become. Hate is too easily borne out of that fear. And that is what the judiciary, the police and the criminal justice system – and indeed society at large – have to come to terms with. Disabled people create fear and hatred in just the same way as people from ethnic minorities do for the racist; women do for the rapist, or gay people do for the homophobe.

Earlier posts:

• BBC asks: Does disability hate crime exist?
• UK gang sentenced to life for murder of disabled man
• Columnist: We must protect people from this wave of barbaric and hateful crimes

From the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Cheyenne Blanton, 17, (photo left) pleaded guilty to committing seven felonies against Ashley Clark, 19, who has a mental disability and was “humiliated, terrorized and tortured” for hours according to prosecutors.

Blanton could be sent to prison for 59 years and pay fines exceeding $100,000 for charges that include aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery, conspiracy, felonious assault, vandalism, and kidnapping.

Prosecutors said Blanton and her boyfriend, Joseph Nagle, showed Ashley a knife and threatened to kill her. “They shaved her head and eyebrows, placed her in a cold shower and made her walk in the snow, soaking wet and barefoot in freezing temperatures,” said a prosecutor.

Sentencing was set for Sept. 5. Blanton’s boyfriend, Joseph Nagle, also faces charges

See earlier posts here and here.

(Cincinnati Enquirer photo

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

In a unanimous decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling that struck down special protections for victims of hate crimes who are gay, female or disabled.

The court ruled that the legislature had unlawfully inserted the hate-crime language into an unrelated measure.

Gov. Edward G. Rendell, through a spokesman, urged the Legislature to reinstate the statute immediately. “Removing protections from any class of people does not seem to fit any categories of equal protection,” said Rendell’s press secretary, Chuck Ardo.

Related story: Michigan bill would extend hate crime protections to gay, disabled people

From the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Legislation has been introduced in Ohio that would expand the state’s hate crime law to provide protection to people with disabilities.

The measure was prompted by the attack last February of Ashley Clark, a teenager who has an intellectual disability and was born without limbs. Authorities say she was violently attacked in her rural home by two assailants who tied her up, beat her with a baseball bat, robbed her, cut off her hair and destroyed her prom dress.

The bill’s sponsor says that the attack would qualify as a hate crime if the proposed law were in place because Clark’s disability appears to be a key reason why she was targeted. Even if the bill were passed, it would have no bearing on the trial of the two suspects in the case.

Earlier post here.

Robert Shrimsley, writing in the Financial Times, says British plans for a disability hate crime law are unreasonable.

It is hard to resist the idea that this is really about preventing mockery. Because, other than comedians, and scriptwriters who put villains in wheelchairs, it is hard to think of the kinds of incitement envisaged by the new law.

… laws like this influence behaviour in insidious ways by creating an underlying fear of a new thought crime. In this atmosphere, the BBC cuts a Little Britain sketch for fear of being prosecuted, or a comedian is denied use of council facilities because in 1984 he made a joke about crutches. In a scriptwriters’ meeting producers wonder whether the villain couldn’t be more able-bodied …

What is lost is not the really outrageous bile that would never have made it anyway, but material that might give offence. So little by little this is an assault on freedom, because even the disabled do not have a constitutional right not to be offended. Or at least, they didn’t until now.

See earlier posts here and here.