Prank Caller No Longer Charged with a Hate Crime

After initially being charged with reckless endangerment as a hate crime, a Staten Island man will only face misdemeanor charges for calling 911 last week with multiple false claims of attacking Mexicans. 44-year-old Michael Franklin was arrested after calling 911 on 5 separate occasions and saying things such as that he "killed two Mexicans and will kill more," that he "is riding around all day looking for more Mexicans" and that he "just hit a Mexican in the head with a baseball bat and threw him in the weeds." A spokesman for the DA's office says that the original hate crime charges were downgraded because the calls don't fall under the state's list of specified offenses for a hate crime. Franklin's only charges now will be for third-degree falsely reporting an incident and second-degree obstruction of governmental administration. After being arrested, he allegedly told police, "I'm an American citizen. The Mexicans are here illegally. They get work. I don't get work."

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By Billy Parker in News on March 23, 2009 5:59 PM

Comments [rss]

snickerdoodle

He wasn't charged with a hate crime because, as the liberal media has been telling us for years, black people are not full of racial hate, they are victims only.

Papercutninja

see? i KNEW it. Black people aren't capable of hate crimes. Only white people are.

Brooklynbobby

I don't know why he hates Mexicans. They're not holding up the welfare line.

longacre

This guy could learn a thing or two from Cutty on The Wire.

SonnyBobiche

If this guy had been white they would have found a way to charge him with a hate crime.

ANGRYGOD11

You are a little behind the times.

The arrested black guys who attacked the 2 Ecuadorian brothers in Brooklyn, and killed one, were charged with a hate crime.

fauxsella

Yeah, but that was only after significant political pressure to do so. Clearly hate crime charges are a means of pacifying political groups and to keep them from rioting. If white people protested (instead of not caring, which is usually the case) every time a black guy killed a white person then the label "hate" would actually be applied to those crimes.

henricus

Yeah, but the two little punks who pushed the Asian student out in front of traffic at Columbia after calling him racial slurs weren't.

SonnyBobiche

If this guy had been white they would have found a way to charge him with a hate crime.

Snoopy

He doesn't have a clue about why he isn't working and the honest, albeit some of them are illegal, Mexicans are working. The dude would love to work the minimum hours and minimum weeks so he could pick up an unemployment check.

"My baby's mama had to go the drug store so I had to take the day off. Oh about last week I had to go in for fiscal because I needed a signed note from the doctor to say I had a problem. Say WHAT? I told you I'd be in at too. We had a party for my homeboy's release from Riker's and it went to six in the morn. Man you coming down to hard on me. Forteen hours a day for dem wages, are you nuts?"

sbunni

I'm pretty sure people don't misspell things when they talk.

ANGRYGOD11

I'd like to hire a strong person like Michael Franklin, but how many times is he going to call-in late for work because he's bashing some Mexicans?

dajamg

The Mexicans get work because they work their asses off doing extremely low-paying jobs. Maybe if he spent less time calling 911 and more time standing out on the street looking for any job he can possibly get, like the Mexicans do, he'd get work too.

jaycjay

Wait a minute... "Prank caller no charged with a hate crime..." If that's a slam on Mexican immigrants' grammar, I'll have DA Donovan slapping hate crime charges on you before you can proofread your next headline, Billy Parker!