Number One: Azusa, California
Latino gang members have been trying since 1992 to expel—by violence and the threat of violence—black citizens of Azusa, California, who comprise only 3% of the city's population—and to prevent any African-Americans from even being in the city. The race-based violence directed at blacks in Azusa has been happening for years and it appeared to peak from 1999 through 2001 when the city tallied 34 hate crimes—33 of them based on race. As examples, on August 8, 2000, a black man, Ge'Juan Sallee, 24, of Covina, California, was gunned down in broad daylight as he left an Azusa auto parts store with his cousin. In 1999, Ralph “Swifty” Flores, 17, a Varrio Azusa 13 criminal street gang member murdered a black 16-year-old, Christopher Lynch, solely because of Mr. Lynch's race; and for that race-based crime Flores was sentenced to life in prison without parole. In addition, least eight black families had their Azusa houses firebombed from 1996 through 2001. Frankly, the city could have made our list yearly because of these ongoing anti-black hate crimes, but Azusa tops our list this year as the most hateful place to live in the United States, because in June 2011, federal agents finally arrested 51 gang members of the Varrio Azusa 13 gang—a Latinos-only gang trying to rid Azusa of African-Americans and the gang widely believed to be responsible for the city’s horrific race-based violence—on various charges. The large number of those arrested points to the severity of racial animus in Azusa. The February 2011 twenty-four count Grand Jury indictment was released by authorities in June 2011 at the time the gang members were arrested and it details the race-based nature of the gang. Here’s hoping the federal indictment sends a message to the San Gabriel Valley city’s gang that committing crimes, including hate crimes meant to racially cleanse the city of blacks, won’t be tolerated, because it's known that local law enforcement and other city leaders have been unable to quell the racial violence in Azusa.
Number Two: Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Like our Number One and our Number Three selections for 2011, Murfreesboro, Tennessee could have made our Hall of Shame
list in prior years. Murfreesboro makes our list this year because the anti-Islamic sentiment there, which has been festering since at least 2009, continues. On August 28, 2010, someone torched construction equipment at the construction site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. Earlier that year, in January, someone spray-painted "not welcome" outside the mosque site, and later the sign was intentionally damaged. In the summer of 2010 a group of locals marched to protest the construction of the mosque, and in June 2010 hundreds of locals protested the approval of the construction site by the city at the Rutherford County Courthouse. After the mosque was built a threatening, anti-Muslim voicemail was directed at the place of worship in September 2011, before that, on July 26, 2011, a man wielding a knife shouted anti-Muslim slurs, and threatened to kill a Muslim woman wearing a religious headscarf who was driving with her son in Murfreesboro. The city's anti-Muslim bigotry was firmly cemented in the public's consciousness nationally when in late March 2011, the Cable News Network twice aired an hour-long documentary about the anti-Muslim sentiment in Murfreesboro; and, USA Today published a story about the hate-inflaming "anti-Shariah Law" bill filed by state Senator Bill Ketron, who is a Republican from Murfreesboro. In July 2011, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain continued to foment hatred in Mufreesboro by accusing the Islamic center there of fostering terrorism and trying to link it to the militant, anti-Semitic Palestinian group Hamas. We believe the anti-Muslim sentiment in Mufreesboro was ginned up by a Tennessee TV reporter who did a two-part hit-piece on the local mosque in 2009/2010 (implying that the mosque might be a hotbed of Muslim radicals); yet, it was the anti-Muslim hate crime incidents in 2011 in the city that led to Mufreesboro making our list this year.
Number Three: Washington, DC
In Washington, DC, on November 6, 2009, Kevin Massey, 31, of Washington, DC, was fatally stabbed 18 to 20 times (15 of those in the back) by Justin L. Navarro, of Washington, DC. Navarro knocked on the door of Mr. Massey's apartment at 4211 2nd Street, N.W., and asked, "Where's the faggot?" After someone answered the door and told Navarro that Mr. Massey was in the bedroom, Navarro went into the kitchen, took a large butcher knife, walked into the bedroom, and according to a statement released by the
U.S. Attorney's Office "without any warning began stabbing Mr. Massey repeatedly." He died at the scene. After the murder, Justin Navarro threatened witnesses and burned his clothes. Prosecutors believed the killing was an anti-gay hate crime, and Navarro was arrested on November 11, 2009. However, on March 22, 2011, a District jury disagreed with the
U.S. Attorney's Office. After a week-long trial they found Justin L. Navarro, 25, guilty of first-degree murder while armed, of obstruction of justice, of tampering with evidence, and of carrying a dangerous weapon; however, the jury did not find Navarro guilty of a hate crime. Of the verdict
DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier said, "It is unfortunate that the jury did not find in favor of the hate bias enhancement." A.J. Singletary, co-chair of the DC-based
Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence, said after the verdict, "The defense that Navarro's lawyers used was they basically said that Navarro was afraid Massey was going to attack or rape him, which is a form of what we call the gay panic defense. The gay panic defense is prevalent, it's homophobic, and it's dangerous, especially if it's getting people off [from being convicted of anti-gay hate crimes]. It shouldn't be upheld in court.'' We agree. On May 24, 2011, Justin Navarro, 26, was sentenced to 40 years in prison (the minimum possible sentence he could have received was 30 years in prison). Overkill, of which Mr. Massey was a victim, is not uncommon in hate crime homicides. In DC, it’s the ordinary people like those comprised of Navarro's jury, not its leaders, that put this city on our list this year. About two months after Navarro's sentencing, Yazzmen Morse, 21, a lesbian, and a group of her friends were attacked in DC next to the
Columbia Heights Metro station allegedly by an anti-lesbian, slur-hurling man, Christian Washington, 19, of Northwest DC; The police did little. They initially refused to take a report and then threatened to arrest the victims as the alleged perpetrator stood across the street watching and laughing. By September 2011, four anti-transgender hate crimes had occurred in DC including the death of a 25- to 30-year-old unknown transgendered woman of either Middle Eastern or Hispanic national origin/ethnicity, and the non-fatal shooting of another transgendered woman. Sadly, it appears the homophobia and transphobia that permeate life on the streets of the nation's capital isn't letting up: on February 2, 2012, a transgendered woman, Deoni Jones, 23, was fatally stabbed at a bus stop at the 4900 block of East Capitol Street, N.E. in what police believe may have been a transgender-based hate crime.
