Archive for the ‘crime’ Category
One of Marcelo Lucero’s Attackers Pleads Guilty
4:11 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Justice| New York| Violence| crime · 1 Comment
5 Nov 2009
While I was writing my reflections on the anniversary of the hate motivated killing of Marcelo Lucero, , one of his attackers plead guilty to a variety of charges. Nicholas Hausch, 18, pleaded guilty to first-degree gang assault, fourth-degree conspiracy, second-degree assault as a hate crime and second-degree attempted assault as a hate crime.
Hausch’s plea is apparently part of a deal in exchange for information on what happened the night Lucero was brutally attacked. Hausch had no problem yelling slurs at Lucero almost a year ago, but had problems speaking up before a judge.
In a barely audible voice, Hausch answered a prosecutor’s questions about the events that led to the slaying, admitting that he and his six co-defendants set out to search for Latinos to attack.
“Keep your voice up, young man,” the judge said to Hausch twice during the teen’s admissions.
Responding to questions from Assistant District Attorney Meghan O’Donnell, Hausch detailed three attacks he was involved in on Nov. 8, including the Lucero killing.
Before coming across Lucero, Hausch said the group pursued another man. “I got out of the car and I chased him. We were yelling at him,” calling him a derogatory name, he said….
Hausch faces 5 to 25 years in prison on the gang assault charge and will not be sentenced until the prosecution of the other six defendants is completed.
Via / Newsday
Remembering Marcelo Lucero : One Year Later, The List of Hate Crimes Grows Longer
12:18 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration| Justice| New York| Violence| crime · 3 Comments
5 Nov 2009
There is much remembering that one year ago the United States elected it’s first person of color president. The U.S. was overwhelmed with bold, bright promises of hope and change. People wept, and I was among them. The start of the Obama era marked the end of the Bush era and hopefully would mean policy changes that would directly impact the everyday lives of all people pero yes, for people of color and immigrants there was a special hope. Hope that immigration reform that would keep all families together and value the lives of people who live and work in the shadows and out in the open.
But then something happened that many thought wasn’t supposed to happen anymore. Weren’t we post-racial? Days after Barack Obama became the president-elect a group of teenagers in Patchogue, Long Island, NY hung out doing what they did about once a week. “Beaner jumping”. That’s what they called it when they went out looking for anyone who looked Latino (they don’t care what kind of “beaner” you are) so they could assault them. That night the young men were out for blood though and they killed Marcelo Lucero.
Read more…
Monday Movie Clip, Voces : Special Circumstances
7:58 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Chile| Media| Raices| Violence| crime| history| military · No Comments
19 Oct 2009While a restless toddler jumped on the bed, I watched pedazos of this documentary last night on Voces on my local PBS station.
Special Circumstances follows Chilean exile Héctor Salgado as he returns to Chile from the USA to seek and confront the men who imprisoned him and tortured and killed his friends after the coup of 1973. Through his journey, audiences will come to understand the legal, political and social obstacles standing in the way of a nation’s attempt, thirty years later, to overcome its brutal history. Throughout five years of determined digging, Héctor finds old friends and family members, victims’ families, survivors and others who express divided and passionate opinions about Chile’s past.The resulting film not only tells a dramatic story of Héctor’s encounters with former military personnel, but also gives audiences a rare look at contemporary Chile and the nation’s efforts to reconcile its troubling history.
Julio Maldonado : Hate Crime Survivor Scheduled for Deportation
1:14 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Family| Immigration| Justice| Philly| crime · Comments Off
7 Oct 2009I wrote about the case of Julio Maldonado and his cousin, Denis Calderon, who survived a horrible hate crime in Philly and now are being victimized again via the Department of Homeland Security.
…They are lawful permanent residents with American citizens as partners and American citizen children. Pero as two Latino immigrants in a changing neighborhood in Philly, they became targets for assault which made it easier for them to be doubly victimized, first by a racist gang and now by the Department of Homeland Security.
In 1996, Julio was visiting Denis at his home in Philadelphia when the two were victims of a racially-motivated attack by a group of white youths who insulted them with a racial slur. When the cousins responded to the slur, the youths began throwing beer bottles at them. The two cousins tried to escape, and then attempted to defend themselves… When the police arrived, they arrested Denis and Julio. They recovered two knives at the scene but did not test them for blood or fingerprints since no witness testified that Denis or Julio had used a knife. Denis and Julio were charged with aggravated assault. None of the white youths were ever charged with any crime.
Tragically, Christian Saladino died in 1998. Williams brought murder charges against Denis and Julio. The case went before a jury and the defendants hired a forensic pathologist who testified that the victim had a pre-existing blood condition and had not died from injuries sustained in an attack. Inconsistencies arose in the accounts of the witnesses and the jury acquitted both defendants.
Judge Smith, the original convicting judge, in his remanded evidentiary hearing decided the new evidence was material and ruled in favor of the defendants, vacating the guilty verdicts and calling for a new trial on the aggravated assault charges. In a reasonable system, that would have been the end of the story and you would not be reading about it today. But Seth Williams appealed the decision and the appellate court reversed Judge Smith because the cousins had failed to present the exculpatory evidence within the time prescribed by the statute of limitations. The cousins’ criminal attorneys appealed the criminal case up to the U.S. Supreme Court and lost on technical grounds.
Several years ago, DHS got involved and put the cousins into removal proceedings on the basis of the conviction which was then being appealed. Julio and Denis appealed their immigration case up to the Third Circuit and lost.
In 2005, Julio and Denis were charged and convicted with failing to cooperate in their own removal because they would not sign the papers necessary to request travel documents from Peru so they could be deported. They have been in federal prison on those charges since 2005. Julio’s release date was moved up a year due to good behavior. DHS has expressed its intent to deport him once he is released on September 12, 2009.
Julio is at a critical point now. Despite being a legal resident of the U.S, and despite the fact that he has refused to sign papers required to process his Peruvian travel documents, Peru has gone ahead and processed temporary travel documents that do not require Julio’s consent, allowing DHS to deport Julio this week. One way to stop this is DHS exercises its discretion to wait until Julio’s pardon request can be heard. **Please call DHS and Governor Rendell at the numbers below!**
***Please call David Venturella, Acting Director of ICE’s Office of Detention and Removal Operation, at (202) 732-3100 to request that DHS allow Julio to stay in the U.S. until his request for a pardon is reviewed by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.***
***Please call Governor Rendell’s office at (717) 787-2500 and ask the governor (1) to expedite review of Julio’s pardon request and (2) to ask DHS to wait to deport him until the pardon request is reviewed.***
Don’t forget that there is a petition you can sign for Julio and Denis here.
Fake ICE Agent Kidnaps Infant, “Misrepresenting how the Government Works or Behaves in this Country”
6:54 am By Maegan La Mala · Family| Immigration| Nashville| Women| children| crime · 7 Comments
3 Oct 2009
Four day old Yair Anthony Carrillo and his mother, Maria Gurrolla of Nashville, Tennessee were doubly victimized by the fear that is the current immigration system in the United States on Tuesday, when the infant was kidnapped by a woman claiming to be an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
The fake official slashed Gurrolla after she initially refused to hand over the child though in the end Carillo was taken away from her.
As if having your newborn child violently taken from your arms weren’t traumatic enough, enter Yuri Cunza, president of Nashville Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and publisher of La Noticia, a Spanish language newspaper in Nashville who instead of connecting the long history of how immigration enforcement separates parents from their children, from Elvira Arellano to Cirila Baltazar Cruz, asks Latino immigrants communities to trust law enforcement and other state agencies who act as de facto ICE agents.
“I am really concerned about the possibility of newborn babies and Hispanic women can be targeted because of a level of vulnerability,” Cunza said…
Cunza said that the suspect posing as an immigration officer will create a chilling effect for Hispanics who regularly interact with immigration authorities. “It is misrepresenting how the government works or behaves in this country,” he said.
From Postville to Patchogue, the cries of immigrant mothers and children tell what is just another day on the job for those who continue to terrorize Latino immigrant communities and the carriers of hate who spread their racist gospel via the mainstream media. It is why children at a young age learn to stay close to their mothers in immigrant communities and maintain a low gaze in the presence of law enforcement. It doesn’t even matter if the ICE badge is real or not, just ask el espiritu de Brisenia Flores and her father. Yair Anthony Carrillo, with four days on this earth, is learning how to live in fear when he should be in his mother’s loving care and Latina motherhood is criminalized and victimized.
Updated: Late last night, after I wrote this post, Yair was found safe.
Via/ The Latin Americanist, Standing Firm, The Unapologetic Mexican
Latin@ stars support child rapist
11:50 am By la Macha · Arts| Careers| Celebrities| Chismes| Controversia| Drugs| Entertainment| Violence| children| crime · 9 Comments
1 Oct 2009
Roman Polanski is a child rapist, right? He gave drugs and alcohol to a 13-year-old girl, and then molested and raped her vaginally and anally (trigger warning, transcript of court hearings at link).
And yet, even as he raped a little girl, Polanski can’t seem to get enough support from stars everywhere–including a whole slew of the top rung of Hollywood Latin@s. A petition of support of Polanski has been making the rounds the past few days:
On September 16th, 2009, Mr. Charles Rivkin, the US Ambassador to France, received French artists and intellectuals at the embassy. He presented to them the new Minister Counselor for Public Affairs at the embassy, Ms Judith Baroody. In perfect French she lauded the Franco-American friendship and recommended the development of cultural relations between our two countries.
If only in the name of this friendship between our two countries, we demand the immediate release of Roman Polanski.
And everyday, more Latin@s are signing on, including:
Pedro Almodovar (Spanish),
Penelope Cruz (Spanish),
Guillermo del Toro,
Gael Garcia Bernal,
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Richard Pena (who is the director of the NY film festival, which VL has promoted)
Harold Alvarado Tenorio
Now, technically, the point *could* be made that the petition is calling for international film festivals to be “neutral” sites that exist outside of legal jurisdictions:
Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision. It seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, is used by the police to apprehend him.
By their extraterritorial nature, film festivals the world over have always permitted works to be shown and for filmmakers to present them freely and safely, even when certain States opposed this.
The arrest of Roman Polanski in a neutral country, where he assumed he could travel without hindrance, undermines this tradition: it opens the way for actions of which no-one can know the effects.
But there are two things that keep me from buying that:
This section:
His arrest follows an American arrest warrant dating from 1978 against the filmmaker, in a case of morals.
and this:
Filmmakers, actors, producers and technicians – everyone involved in international filmmaking – want him to know that he has their support and friendship.
Is drugging and raping a 13-year-old child really a case of morals? Does it show the best morals in the world to support and give friendship to a man who drugs and rapes a child? To advocate for that man’s freedom? Is a rapist’s freedom really more important than recognizing the crime of rape? Is friendship with a rapist really more important than standing in solidarity with women and girls (and men and boys) worldwide that are raped, have been raped and/or will be raped?
Do these “stars” have no responsibility at all to the young girls that watch their films?
On a different note, the girl that Polanski raped was also a worker–she was raped by him while on a shoot. Her career was finished the moment she told what happened–why is it more wrong to be arrested for a crime you admitted to committing while at a work party, than it is to be raped by your boss while at work? Why does Polanski have more right to a career than that girl did? Why do the careers of women seem predicated on their ability to keep their mouths shut about the violence and power male colleagues and bosses exert over them?
Do no workers owe their solidarity to a fellow worker who was assaulted and then blacklisted?
What is most disappointing about the list of Latin@ stars is that Gael Garcia Bernal is on it. Coming from a background of radical activism, and having appeared in several movies with leftist politics, I expected more of him.
But when has a belief in radical politics ever made men more inclined to stand against gender based violence?
Violence against women and girls, and sexual violence against children is endemic throughout the world. It is not progressive, radical or liberatory to stand in support of a rapist–it is the norm. It is saying it is ok for child rape to be a normal part of the world.
Latina women and children deserve more, and expect more.
The survivor of Roman Polanski’s assault deserves more.
These “stars” should be ashamed of themselves.
Is Decriminalization Enough to Stop the “War on Drugs” Violence in Latin America?
6:27 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Argentina| Colombia| Drugs| Latin America| Politics| Violence| crime| mexico| military · 2 Comments
28 Aug 2009
Two Latin American countries recently have made moves to decriminalize the possession of certain drugs for personal use, a move that some are touting as a positive new direction in the “war on drugs”.
Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that it is unconstitutional to prosecute cases involving personal marijuana use as long as it does not harm others. It did not, however, set a weight limit for what it considers personal use.
The judges’ decision urges the Argentine government to “create policies against illegal drug trafficking and adopt preventive health measures, with information and education against drug consumption directed at the most vulnerable groups.
And in Mexico:
Under the new law, a police search that turns up a half-gram of cocaine, the equivalent of about four lines, will not bring any jail time. The same applies for 5 grams of marijuana (about four cigarettes), 50 milligrams of heroin, 40 milligrams of methamphetamine or 0.015 milligrams of LSD.
Mexico City : Hate Crimes Laws Won’t Bring Back the Dead Pero It’s More than the U.S. Has
8:11 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · GLBT| Justice| Violence| crime| mexico · Comments Off
27 Aug 2009
I have a pretty radical stance towards hate crimes legislation. I’m not the type of person who likes to push legislation as an answer to way communities are brutalized. Laws certainly won’t bring back the dead and a society with hate woven into the fabric of its narrative isn’t going to stop attacking people it sees as “imperfections” in that weave.
That being said, in Mexico City there have been at least 6 murders of gay men that have not been classified as hate crimes. Instead, authorities in the D.F. label the deaths as “crimes of passion”. From vecino Blabbeando:
LGBT advocates have already claimed that homophobia might be at play in the murders of six gay men during the last year, even if authorities have said otherwise. The latest, they say, occurred on August 15th, when 24 year old Victor Galán, who had moved to live in Mexico City a month earlier, was stabbed 12 times and found dead in his apartment. Advocates say that robbery was not a motive in the crime and that they suspect he was killed based on the fact that he was gay. Authorities, on the other hand, say that they have not ruled out a “crime of passion.”
When sex workers aren’t white and beautiful
4:54 pm By la Macha · Labor| Media| Netroots Nation| Violence| Women| crime| media justice| race| sex · 6 Comments
14 Aug 2009
Remember the Craig’s List Killer? The one who was hiring women to perform sex acts, and then killing them? Remember what big news that was?
Today I read the news of a small town in North Carolina where at least 9 women who were sex workers have been murdered and/or are missing.
Since 2005, nine women who lived at the edges of the poor community in this small North Carolina city have disappeared. Six bodies were found along rural roads just a few miles outside town, most so decomposed that investigators could not tell how they died. At least one of the women was strangled, and all the deaths have been classified as homicides. Three women are still missing.
Police will not say whether they suspect a serial killer, but people in the community about 60 miles northeast of Raleigh do, and they’re impatient with law enforcement efforts to investigate the slayings.
This is a small town, so nine women gone is something that is noticed by a lot of people. As one of the women who used to work with the missing women said:
“I used to walk these streets and jump in and out of cars. But then when that first girl Melody got killed I stopped that because I knew he would kill another,” said Johnson, 41. “I hate for that to happen to her, but it probably saved my life. I have five babies.”
Counting the names on one hand, she added, “There’s probably five or six girls left around here that will jump in and out of cars. He really did kill the whole neighborhood.“
I knew without being told several aspects of the story: namely, the police didn’t really investigate what was going on until more women wound up dead. And even then, the families are frustrated because police don’t seem to really care. And the media isn’t really covering it all that much. And national pressure is non-existent, and money for body recovery is hard to come by.
And from what I can see, every single one of the women who are missing are black.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that sex work is any safer for white women then it is for women of color–but I DO think that people *care more* when the women who are killed or missing is beautiful, young and white rather than old or older, a mother of multiple kids and black. How the media has covered these separate crimes is evidence of that. When the Craig’s List murder happened, the media was stalking the court rooms, running police images of the suspect, talking to the murder victim’s families, contemplating over and over again–what would make such a beautiful woman *do this* (i.e. sex work)? She had her whole life ahead of her! She could’ve done anything! Oh, the tragedy of women being forced to sell sexual acts so they can survive!
Compared to nine women black women now missing or dead–and ONE article about in the national news.
Whose lives does the media find important? Whose PUSSIES does the media find important? Whose neighborhood’s does the media find important?
While I’m not a fan of the netroots nation conference–the one thing I am really glad of is that la Mala is repping. We must ALL feel the emptiness of a table with women not there because of violence and erasure. And for some reason, I don’t see many people at the “nation” caring much about these women, unless somebody is there to “remind” the nation about who isn’t there.
Hola!
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- Rihanna interview
- One of Marcelo Lucero’s Attackers Pleads Guilty
- Remembering Marcelo Lucero : One Year Later, The List of Hate Crimes Grows Longer
- Rihanna Speaks
- A Message To Maine
- Maine Voters Said Yes on 1 and Yes to Marriage Inequity
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