On September 17, Seattle police officers responded to calls about an assault on Capitol Hill to find their suspect, 34-year-old Raven Lang Brealan, who stands six feet two and weighs 290 pounds, hiding in some bushes in a yellow golf hat. When questioned by police about the alleged assault—specifically, if he had called two men “faggots,” threatened them with a knife, and struck one of the men repeatedly in the face—Brealan explained that “earlier that night while talking to what he thought was a woman… he ‘felt an erection,'” according to a police report. When he learned that the woman he was flirting with was actually a man, he became “very upset.”

Four days later, the King County Prosecutor’s Office filed assault and malicious harassment charges—classified as hate crimes under Washington State law—against Brealan for “yelling homosexual slurs” and striking his victim with a street sign, writes Detective Moore in charging documents. (Neither the police report nor the charging documents say if the victim is transgender or was dressed as a woman.)

Mike Hogan, a 25-year prosecuting attorney, decides when to charge suspects with being motivated by a victim’s real or perceived race, sexual orientation, national origin, etc. He says that local law-­enforcement agencies are referring more hate crime cases to his office each year—and that’s actually a good thing.

“I don’t believe that means more people are getting assaulted,” says Hogan. “Rather, police are trained on biased motives and victims are more confident about speaking out. Whereas 20 years ago, malicious harassment simply wasn’t investigated, wasn’t reported, and wasn’t prosecuted.”

Indeed, hate crimes appear to be piercing the public consciousness more than ever. This summer alone, Seattle has seen mainstream media coverage of a transgender teen allegedly assaulted with a baseball bat and a woman reportedly spit on for speaking Arabic at a bus stop. The Stranger has reported on countless cases in recent years of victims being assaulted while assailants call them “faggot,” “homo,” or “you gay motherfucker.” And as recently as September 24, police filed the report of a West Seattle couple whose cars were vandalized and left with a note that read, “Get the fuck out of our neighborhood. The bible says God forbids men committing indecent act [sic] with other men.” Police classified that, too, as malicious harassment.

But prosecutors don’t necessarily file hate crime charges in every case due to the high burden of proof required, Hogan explains. In 2010, the prosecutor’s office prosecuted 21 hate crime cases. So far this year, Hogan has referred only nine cases for hate crime charges, putting the county on track to have the lowest number of prosecuted hate crimes since 2007 (the earliest year data was available).

As for Brealan, he is being held in King County Jail and is facing an arraignment hearing on October 5. recommended

Former Stranger news writer Cienna Madrid has been a writer in residence for Richard Hugo House, a local literary nonprofit. There, she taught fiction classes and wrote 4/5 of a book about a death-row...

9 replies on “Evolution of Hate Crimes”

  1. I’m inclined to agree that there isn’t an increase in the actual crimes, just an increase in the reporting of them, the courage of the victims is basically on the rise. This is a good thing, so the increase in the number of crimes prosecuted as hate is a good sign that people are speaking out more as well as better treatment by the police. But you do have to be careful not to go overboard with it and create witch-hunt style prosecutions, stooping to the level of the haters is just not a good thing.

  3. @1

    Too late.

    Absolutely you charge someone who assaults another. With assault. You charge someone who murders another. With murder. You use statemements like ‘faggot’ or ‘nigger’ made by he accused as a means to establish motive or make your point with a jury as a prosecutor, and you should.

    But gay citizens, black citizens, women citizens, citizens whose families came here from Iran all share one thing. They are citizens who have no more right not to be offended than I do as a white male citizen. By establishing ‘hate crimes’ we decide that whatever the designated protected classes are have a citizenship held at more worth than others. A crime commited against such a citizen isn’t held at the level one committed against another is, and that’s a bad thing. For the same reason that gay citizens or black citizens deserve the full protection of the law they do not deserve more protection from the law.

    You don’t have to be a ‘Tea Partier’ to respect these notions of basic justice.

  4. @3: If a person of color throws a brick at you and calls you a cracker, they will most likely be charged with a hate crime.
    How many times do I have to explain this to you, you candy-ass roody-poo? Hate crime laws do NOT give extra protections to any groups; rather, they create a protected category.

  5. @4

    Hate crimes do not give extra protection to any groups, they create a protected category? I think you’re making a difference without a distinction.

    You can claim that all you like. The fact is that no white person will EVER be the victim of a ‘hate’ crime. No person will ever stand trial for hating a white middle aged protestant and voicing that hate while mugging him.

    Prosecute for the actual crime and leave the emotions out of it if justice is the goal. Otherwise drop the pretense that you liberals care about due process or justice.

  6. @5: “The fact is that no white person will EVER be the victim of a ‘hate’ crime. No person will ever stand trial for hating a white middle aged protestant and voicing that hate while mugging him.”
    You want to bet?
    According to the FBI, there were 545 recorded incidents of anti-white hate crime in 2009. There were also 21 anti-heterosexual hate crime incidents that year. Clearly, pretty much everyone stands to benefit from hate crime legislation.
    Do you even think about the stuff you say?

  7. @3 But there is another element that the article points out, the increase in the reporting has also tightened the required proof of it being a hate crime, so at least someone is looking to prevent it from becoming a witch-hunt style law. There are always drawbacks to everything, as well as benefits. The trick is to weigh the two and find a point in which they balance out best. The best thing that hate crime laws have done, as I pointed out, was to increase the courage of victims to com forward, meaning that more crimes are being prosecuted as a whole.

  8. Fuck the Thought Police…. Is this fucking behind the iron curtain???? Fuck off you sissy motherfuckers and ragheads all alike!

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