America Responds—Anti-Islamic Violence will not be Tolerated
Feature Story by Celeste Berry - 1/16/2002
All over the country, persons who perpetrated anti-Islamic violence “in response” to the September 11 attacks are receiving tough sentencing for their actions. A man who tried to set fire to a Pakistani-American family's business two days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was sentenced on January 8 in Salt Lake City to more than four years in prison.
Federal prosecutors said the arsonist, James Herrick, 32, made the restaurant Curry in a Hurry his target because of the owners' race.
"I got upset over what happened and did something very stupid," Mr. Herrick told the federal magistrate, Ronald Boyce, in October, when he pleaded guilty to a civil rights violation.
In San Diego, meanwhile, a man who attacked a Middle Eastern service station clerk with a screwdriver on Nov. 18 was sentenced on Monday to six years in prison.
The assailant, Horatio Plascencia, 30, pleaded guilty to battery during a hate crime, which carries a maximum sentence of three years.
It has been reported that in many parts of the country, the number of hate crimes have risen sharply after the attacks on September 11. Los Angeles county officials, for example, announced that there were seven times the amount of hate crimes in Los Angeles in 2001 than in 2000, the majority of which were committed against persons who were or were perceived to be of Muslim or Middle Eastern descent.
