Since 1999, More Than A Thousand Homeless People Have Been Victims Of Violent Hate Crimes

[xchrom]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/12/20/3079971/homeless-violence/



John Berry, 64, a Vietnam veteran who lived without a home in Anaheim. Stabbed to death. Billy Rajah Jr., 47, a Salinas man living on the streets. Ran over by a man who decided that once wasn’t enough, so he ran over Rajah again, killing him. Pedro Ramos, 32, homeless in Houston. A group of teenagers shot him and took his wallet. He had $1.

The victims’ crimes: being poor.

Over the past 14 years, there have been at least 1,328 violent hate crimes perpetrated against homeless individuals, according to a new report. Of those, 357 people were killed. These attacks are “believed to be motivated by the perpetrators’ bias against homeless individuals or their ability to target homeless people with relative ease,” according to the National Coalition for the Homeless’ new report, Senseless Violence: A Survey of Hate Crimes/Violence against the Homeless in 2012. It’s important to note that these statistics likely undercount reality, since many acts of violence against homeless people go unreported.

In 2012, there were 88 homeless people who were victims of hate crimes, 18 of whom lost their lives. While most victims are middle-aged men, the typical attacker is a male less than 20 years old.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Oh, I'll bet that number is off by a factor of ten or more.

No time to look it up, found one link, and these are just numbers they collected, not all events reported nationwide and not including unreported cases, naturally:

Cases in 2010
In 2010, the National Coalition for the Homeless compiled a total of one hundred thirteen homeless victims of violence who were attacked by non-homeless perpetrators. Of the one hundred thirteen victims, eighty-nine were not fatally injured, while twenty-four of the victims lost their lives. Over the past twelve years, one in four violent attacks on homeless individuals resulted in death, and in 2010, more than one in every five resulted in death.

Examples of 2010 headlines include:
o
Man Uses Concrete Slab to Bludgeon Homeless Man
o
Homeless Man Set on Fire While Sleeping
o
Bottles Filled with Acid Thrown at the Homeless Community
o
Homeless Woman Beaten with Pistol after Refusing Sex
o
Homeless Man Beaten, Tied to Bumper of Car and Dragged Down Road

http://www.nationalhomeless.org/projects/hatecrimes.html

:cry"

[woo me with science]

2. Huge K&R. Corporate media breeds this sort of hatred and dehumanization of the poor.

Remember this Daily Show montage of clips from corporate media, comparing the poor to vermin? I recommend watching the whole thing, but the last few minutes, especially, will sicken and enrage you. This is the rhetoric that breeds the violence you post about here.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare---the-poor-s-free-ride-is-over

We marinate in sick, malignant corporate propaganda that bases human value on ability to generate profit for the One Percent.

[brer cat]

3. So very true.

It is sickening. K&R