This spring a man opened fire at Jewish sites in Overland Park, KS killing three. Just last week a Kansas City, Mo. Muslim Somali youth died after he was the target of a hit-and-run. Go east and the Bosnian community in St. Louis in the first week of this month has seen one of its members murdered and another dragged from her car and beaten.
In each of these the term “hate crime” surfaced . . . sometimes spoken by community members . . . other times by law enforcement. Does the term truly apply in all of these instances? In this segment of Up to Date, Steve Kraske explores this question with civic leader Alvin Brooks, law professor Allen Rostron, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Doug Moore.
