Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 8, 1994 TAG: 9407080071
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
A derogatory sign spray-painted in the predominantly black Nellies Cave community of Blacksburg has the letters KKK.
A cook-out discussion of the movie "Malcolm X" disintegrates into a brawl when a black said he disagreed with Jesus being portrayed as white. The victim, white, was hit with a small barbecue grill.
A man is struck in the mouth after being called a "faggot."
Those are the four incidents Blacksburg reported as hate crimes last year. Virginia Tech also listed four cases, ranking both the town and university sixth in the state's Top Ten localities for reported hate crimes.
Fairfax County reported the highest number of hate crimes, 29.
Some police officials say the figures are misleading because there is a disparity between how some departments classify and report the crimes. The figures are gathered by state police for the FBI, which began compiling data nationally after Congress passed the Hate Crimes Statistics Act in April 1990.
Last year, 93 cases of hate-motivated intimidation, vandalism and assaults were reported in Virginia, down from 102 in 1992, according to the Associated Press.
At Virginia Tech, the incidents included a banner from the gay and lesbian group Lambda Horizons being stolen; verbal abuse of a black man at the Hokie Grill as he took some items down from a bulletin board; a white woman complaining of obscene notes being left by a man who thought she was biased against blacks; and a white man being struck in the face by a black who was part of a group of 10 people who approached him at Vawter Hall.
"They're not anything major but [we] feel we need to report them," said Sgt. Jerry Olinger of the Tech police department.
Blacksburg Chief Bill Brown said a couple of the four town incidents "... could be iffy."
Hate crimes are those incidents that arise out of a person's dislike for a particular religious, sexual orientation, ethnic or racial group.
"But if two people bump into each other in a dance floor (and begin to fight), we don't know if it originated from hate or the bumping into. And it's probably the bumping into," Brown said.
With the relatively new reporting requirements, Brown said his department prefers to report a borderline case rather than not.
Brown said Blacksburg officers have continuous diversity training to help them understand cultural differences and how these differences could affect a person's behavior.
It has only been a few years since hate crimes became a national focus. Since then, police academies have introduced training on identifying hate crimes.
Olinger said Tech officers go through an eight-hour diversity training sponsored by the university's Employee Relations Department.
by CNB