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One of the ten suspects arrested in the Q train beating of a Jewish man during Hanukkah is saying that hate crime charges are completely uncalled for because he himself is Jewish. Joseph Jirovec Jr. was arrested two weeks ago after a group of Hanukkah revelers was beaten while on a the Q train after wishing happy holidays to other riders. Members of a crowd on the train took objection to the Jewish greetings and a beatdown ensued. In an encouraging twist, it was a young Muslim man who came to Walter Adler's aid. Hassan Askari was recently honored for his interfaith Good Samaritanism.
Two weeks later, Jirovec Jr. is claiming innocence of a hate crime due to the fact that his mother was Jewish. In a religious sense, that would make Jirovec Jr. Jewish as well, although his father is Catholic and Jirovec Jr. and his brother were not raised religiously. Ironically, one of Adler and Askari's attackers were sporting a tattoo of Jesus, which they bared before the fight. Jirovec Jr. appears to sport tattoos in photos we've seen, although that is generally proscribed by the Jewish faith.
Jirovec Jr.'s defense is uncannily reminiscent of Michael Fortunato's, who defended himself against the hate crime murder charge of Michael Sandy by proclaiming that he couldn't be guilty of a murder where he and his friends lured Sandy to a remote location and beat and chased him onto a highway, where he was fatally struck by a car, because he was in fact gay. In the end, Fortunato was found guilty of a manslaughter charge only.
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I don't care if he's a rabbi, he's a hateful, violent person and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
this is what is flawed about the idea of "hate crimes"- violence inflicted upon another human being is always hateful, regardless. Period.
"after a group of Hanukkah revelers was beaten while on a the Q train after wishing happy holidays to other riders."
Is that what happened? I think you screwed up the story. Jirovec was reveling and wishing everyone a merry x-mas when he said it to the jewish couple who replied with "happy c-kah" and that's when Jirovec lost it.
Not that I care about this at all.
If this kids defense is that he is Jewish then Bernard Goetz is a black man.
What's flawed about the idea of "hate crimes" is that the term is a misnomer: whether violence against another human being is "always hateful" (despite it's motive, is incidental to the reality that bias crimes have the potential (and often do) affect the safety of larger communities.
I'll point out that the Supreme Court recognized the constitutionality of hate crime provisions in 1993 (in a Rehnquist, 9-0 opinion, I might add) and the basis for Congress passing the 1968 Federal hate crime provision (18 USC 245) was predicated on the reality that certain people in this country were intentionally targeting certain other people in this country, solely on account of race, in an effor to intimidate and foricbly exclude the latter from certain fields of public accomodation (voting, integration of public schools, restaurants -- all the good stuff).
Period.
Um, Jews don't name their kids "Jr."
Also, is he Jewish in that his mom is Jewish? Or is he Jewish in the Nuremberg-Laws/Nazi-Germany kinda way - at least one grandparent is Jewish.
I agree with #1 though - JJJ is a hateful, violent person.
if he wasn't bought up Jewish how would he know what Jewish is all about? LOL! Obviously it's another cheap way out.