http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19622945/site/newsweek/

The Wages of Hate

David Ritcheson was brutally beaten and sexually assaulted in 2006. This spring, he testified before Congress in favor of stiffer hate-crimes laws, and seemed to be putting his life back together. He didn't quite make it. David's story.

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By Gretel C. Kovach
Newsweek

July 5, 2007 - David Ritcheson’s wounds finally seemed to be healing. After the Mexican-American teen was beaten nearly to death and sexually assaulted in 2006 by two young men yelling “white power” slogans, he struggled to overcome immeasurable physical and emotional trauma. But there he was in April, testifying at a congressional hearing in favor of hate-crimes legislation, publicly recounting the horror he had endured. Dressed in a smart suit, the cherubic high-school senior from suburban Houston spoke in a clear, strong voice. “I appear before you as a survivor of one of the most despicable, shocking and heinous acts of hate violence this country has seen in decades,” Ritcheson said. Yet in the aftermath, “as each day passed, I became more and more aware of everything I had to live for. I am glad to tell you today that my best days still lay ahead of me.”

Yet his wounds evidently continued to torment him. On Sunday, Ritcheson, 18, died after leaping from the upper deck of a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico. A trip he’d planned as a summer escape with some buddies ended instead in tragedy. His parents, who flew to Mexico to meet up with the ship, returned to Texas with Ritcheson’s body on Thursday. Now the FBI is investigating the circumstances surrounding his death. Among the unconfirmed reports that have already surfaced: that passengers and crew members tried to talk Ritcheson down and set out mattresses to catch his fall; that he was seen drinking in the ship’s dance club Saturday night, and that one girl told her mother before Ritcheson’s death that she’d overheard a young man mention to his friends that he wanted to jump overboard. Many questions remain unanswered, says the family’s attorney, Carlos Leon, but “ultimately, whatever David did that morning was absolutely related to what had happened to him and the pain he was in.”

Ritcheson, a popular football player and onetime freshman homecoming prince, endured one of the most brutal hate-crime attacks in recent history. It began one evening in April 2006, when he went out with a new acquaintance, Gus Sons, whom he’d met at an alternative school (Ritcheson had been sent there for fighting at Klein Collins High School in Spring, Texas). The two went to a crawfish festival and then returned to Sons’s house with some other boys Ritcheson met for the first time that night to drink vodka and snort cocaine. Among them was David Henry Tuck, a notorious skinhead who terrorized his neighbors with “Heil, Hitler” salutes, once broke the bones of a 51-year-old Hispanic man at a gas station and was locked up in a juvenile detention center for kicking a sheriff’s deputy.

At some point, an argument started. The reason remains unclear—perhaps because Ritcheson had stolen some of Sons’s drugs, perhaps because he made a drunken pass at Sons’s little sister (if the attackers’ accounts can be believed), perhaps for no other reason than that Ritcheson is Mexican-American. Tuck knocked Ritcheson unconscious with one crack that broke his jaw, the ER physician who treated him said in court. Then Tuck and his sidekick, Keith Robert Turner, spent the next several hours beating and torturing Ritcheson while shouting “White power!” according to court testimony. They stripped him, burned his skin with cigarettes, poured bleach on his wounds, rammed the end of a patio umbrella into his anus and kicked it with steel-toed boots deep enough to rupture his internal organs, according to witness testimony. They started to carve a swastika in his chest, but some of the onlookers thought that was going too far. Ritcheson told members of Congress that God had spared him the memory of what happened that night, but “today I still bear that scar on my chest like a scarlet letter.” Tuck and Turner, who pleaded not guilty, were convicted of aggravated sexual assault; Tuck received a life sentence, while Turner received a 90-year sentence.

Sons’s mother, Christina Sons, found Ritcheson the next morning and called an ambulance. When authorities arrived, Tuck’s clothes were still splattered with Ritcheson’s blood. Ritcheson spent the next three months in the hospital, where he underwent more than 30 opererations. When he returned to Klein Collins High School this year, he walked the school halls with the help of a cane and the protective presence of his former football teammates. Laticia Galvan, the aunt who raised Ritcheson since he was a baby and whom he called mom, said in court last November, "I didn't think he was going to make it.” And if he did, she added, “I wondered if mentally, is he going to be OK?” Her husband, Albert, said, “This will be with us for the rest of our lives. There's no healing.”

Yet Ritcheson did seem to be slowly mending himself. Though he refused counseling, his family and friends didn’t insist on it because he appeared to be recovering so well, both physically and mentally, says Leon, the family attorney, who grew close to Ritcheson in the last year. “David was very upbeat, in spite of everything that happened to him,” says Leon. “He was a very caring guy, and he wanted everyone around him to think that he was happy.” Ritcheson sent Leon a text message about a month ago after reaching a medical milestone, a successful surgery that allowed him to ditch the colostomy bag that had made basic bodily functions so difficult and humiliating for him. Ritcheson was about to start a new job this summer and finish the last credits he needed to graduate after missing so much school. “He had plans,” says Leon. But in hindsight, Leon adds, Ritcheson “obviously internalized a lot of the pain he was feeling … None of us realized that his struggle was as difficult as it was.”

What makes Ritcheson’s story all the more heart-rending is that he appeared intent on rehabilitating all aspects of his life, not just the injuries he suffered. Clearly, he’d had troubles before the attack, evidenced by his reported drug use and his school transfer for fighting. “You could see that he was a young man who had made some bad choices in the past,” says Mike Trent, the Harris County assistant district attorney who worked closely with Ritcheson to prosecute the case. “But [he] was ready to make something positive of something horrible that was inflicted on him. Unfortunately, it looks like he gave up on that.”

Ritcheson’s decision to appear before Congress was momentous. Though he hated people associating him with the violence unleashed on him and “he didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him,” says Leon, he chose to make such a public appearance because of his commitment to strengthening state and federal hate-crime laws. His own case was never tried as a hate crime, since it didn’t fit the federal statutes and under Texas criminal law, first-degree felonies are exempt from hate-crimes provisions.

The fate of the federal legislation Ritcheson championed—the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, also known as David’s Law—remains uncertain. Though it recently passed the House, President George W. Bush has threatened to veto it. At a press conference Tuesday, an array of community leaders joined Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee to elicit support for the proposed legislation and to laud Ritcheson’s struggle. “David will live as a hero for all to be reminded that hate kills,” she said.

The grass in front of Ritcheson’s home is matted with white candle wax next to a small shrine of pictures of the smiling teen. A T shirt printed with the words I’M PRAYING FOR DAVID hangs from the mailbox. It is the same T shirt that Klein Collins High School students wore in their vigil for him while he fought for his life in the hospital. Since school is out for the summer, Ritcheson’s classmates gathered instead in cyberspace, memorializing him on MySpace pages. “D-Rich Im gonna miss ya homie R.I.P.,” wrote longtime friend Kendall Hilliard. In the wake of Ritcheson’s death, Klein Collins High School is establishing a “No Place for Hate” program that Ritcheson had lobbied administrators to adopt. Designed by the Anti-Defamation League, it’s designed to instill students with tolerance and understanding of diversity. “This crime took place in middle-class America in the year 2006,” Ritcheson testified before Congress. “The reality that hate is alive, strong and thriving in the cities, towns and cul-de-sacs of Suburbia, America, was a surprise to me.” Perhaps part of his legacy will be to help spread the unsettling truth of that hatred—and drain some of its venom.

A very sad story and certainly an example of how powerfully scarring hate crimes can be.

http://judiciary.house.gov/HearingTestimony.aspx?ID=505

Statement of Mr. David Ritcheson
Hearing on H.R. 1592, the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes
Prevention Act of 2007”
House Judiciary Committee
Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
Tuesday, April 17

I appear before you as a survivor of one of the most despicable, shocking, and heinous acts of hate violence this country has seen in decades. Nearly one year ago on April 22, 2006, I was viciously attacked by two individuals because of my heritage as a Mexican-American. After hanging out with a few friends at a local crawfish festival, my friend and I, along with the two individuals who would eventually attack me, returned to the home in Spring, Texas where I was to spend the night. It was shortly after arriving at this private residence that a minor disagreement between me and the attackers turned into the pretext for what I believe was a premeditated hate crime. This was a moment that would change my life forever. After I was surprisingly sucker punched and knocked out, I was dragged into the back yard for an attack that would last for over an hour. Two individuals, one an admitted racist skinhead, attempted to carve a swastika on my chest. Today I still bear that scar on my chest like a scarlet letter. After they stripped me naked, I was burned with cigarettes and savagely kicked by this skinhead’s steel toed army boots. After burning me in the center of the forehead, the skinhead attacker was heard saying that now I looked like an Indian with the red dot on my forehead. Moreover, the witnesses to the attack recalled the two attackers calling me a “wetback” and a ‘spic” as they continued to beat me as I lay unconscious. Once the attack came to an end, I was dragged to the rear of the back yard and left for dead. Reportedly, I lay unconscious in the back yard of this private residence for the next 8-9 hours. It was not until the next morning that I was found and the paramedics came to my aid. I am recounting this tragic event from the testimony I heard during the trial of the two attackers this past fall. God spared me the memory of what happened that night. As I sit before you today, I still have no recollection of those life changing twelve hours or the weeks that followed.

Weeks later I recall waking up in the hospital with a myriad of emotions, including fear and uncertainty. Most of all, I felt inexplicable humiliation. Not only did I have to face my peers and my family, I had to face the fact that I had been targeted for violence in a brutal crime because of my ethnicity. This crime took place in middle-class America in the year 2006. The reality that hate is alive, strong, and thriving in the cities, towns, and cul-de-sacs of Suburbia, America was a surprise to me. America is the country I love and call home. However, the hate crime committed against me illustrates that we are still, in some aspects, a house divided. I know now that there are young people in this country who are suffering and confused, thirsting for guidance and in need of a moral compass. These are some of the many reasons I am here before you today asking that our government take the lead in deterring individuals like those who attacked me from committing unthinkable and violent crimes against others because of where they are from, the color of their skin, the God they worship, the person they love, or the way they look, talk or act.

I believe that education can have an important impact by teaching against hate and bigotry. In fact, I have encouraged my school and others to adopt the Anti-Defamation League’s No Place for Hate® program. If these crimes cannot be prevented, the federal government must have the authority to support state and local bias crime prosecutions.

As the weeks in the hospital turned into months, I began hearing the stories of support that came from literally all over the world. The local community pulled together in a really majestic way, reaffirming my hope in the good of humanity. My family told me about the crowded waiting rooms full of the great friends from past and present. I heard about prayer groups before school in front of my school, the Klein Collins Campus. The donations that helped my family and me get through an unthinkable time poured in from generous people scattered across the globe. These donations would help pay for the enormous hospital bills from the over thirty surgeries I underwent during the first three months after the attack. Most of these operations were essential to saving my life -- and others were necessary just to make my body able to perform what would be normal functions.

As the recovery process continued, my family began to slowly inform me of what had happened to me. They went on to tell me of the effective response by the Harris County Sheriff’s Department and the Harris County Constables who had investigated the hate crime committed against me. I slowly began learning the about the background of the two individuals who had been arrested for attacking me. I was informed that one of the attackers, David Tuck, was a self proclaimed racist skinhead who had viciously attacked at least two other Hispanics in the past few years, almost killing one of them. I learned that he had been in and out of several juvenile facilities. Most surprising, I learned that he had been released from the Texas Youth Commission a little over a month before he attacked me. In fact, he was still on probation the night he nearly ended my life. I was told that he had “white power” and swastikas tattoos on his body. I was informed that his older step brother, a major influence in his life, was also a self-proclaimed skinhead currently serving time in a Texas jail. Here I was, learning shocking details of a person who lived only miles from me and who had at one time attended the same high school that I attended. How could this type of hate be breeding just miles from my home in a city as diverse as Spring without anyone taking notice?

I quickly learned of and benefited from the support of groups such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). Both groups immediately provided whatever support they could to help me and my family. From setting up fundraisers to help my family with unanticipated expenses to providing emotional support confirming that I was not going through this alone, both groups were instrumental in assisting me and my family in the process of moving forward. There are so many people to thank for the support they have given me, including the ongoing encouragement to appear before you today.

Last November and December I sat in a courtroom in Harris County, Texas and faced my attackers for the first time as they went through their respective trials. I am glad to say that justice was done. I am proud of the job our county prosecutors and investigators did in ensuring life sentences for the two individuals who attacked me. Specifically, I want to recognize the great job that Assistant District Attorney Mike Trent did during the prosecution of these two individuals. However, despite the obvious bias motivation of the crime, it is very frustrating to me that neither the state of Texas nor the federal government was able to utilize hate crime laws on the books today in the prosecution of my attackers. I am upset that neither the Justice Department nor the FBI was able to assist or get involved in the investigation of my case because “the crime did not fit the existing hate crime laws.” Today I urge you to take the lead in this time of needed change and approve the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007”. I was fortunate to live in a town where local law enforcement authorities had the resources, the ability -- and the will – to effectively investigate and prosecute the hate violence directed against me. But other bias crime victims may not live in such places. I ask you to provide authority for local law enforcement to work together with federal agencies when someone is senselessly attacked because of where they are from or because of who they are. Local prosecutors should be able to look to the federal government for support when these types of crimes are committed. Most importantly, these crimes should be called what they are and prosecuted for what they are, “hate crimes”!

In fact, because there was so much attention focused on the fact that my case was not being prosecuted in Texas as a hate crime, the Anti-Defamation League and the Cook County (Illinois) Hate Crimes Prosecution Council published a Pamphlet called “Hate Crimes Data Collection and Prosecutions:Frequently Asked Questions,” designed to address some of the basic legal and practical considerations involved in labeling and charging a hate crime.

My experience over the last year has reminded me of the many blessings I took for granted for so long. With my humiliation and emotional and physical scars came the ambition and strong sense of determination that brought out the natural fighter in me. I realized just how important family and the support of community truly are. I will always recall my parents at my bedside providing me with strength and reassurance. They showed me how to be strong during my whole recovery, a process I am still going through today. Seeing the hopeful look of concern in the faces of my siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles everyday was the direct support I needed to get through those terrible first few months. As each day passed, I became more and more aware of everything I had to live for. I am glad to tell you today that my best days still lay ahead of me.

Thank you for the opportunity to tell my story. It has been a blessing to know that the most terrible day of my life may help put another human face on the campaign to enact a much needed law such as the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007”. I can assure you, from this day forward I will do what ever I can to help make our great county, the United States of America, a hate free place to live.

I had heard abt a young man committing suicide by jumping from a cruise ship. I hadn't heard the entire details of this.


I am sickened and angry and I hope nothing but DEATH FOR THOSE BASTARDS. Anyone who commits any heinous crime deserves life behind bars.

These bastards who continue to think that WHITE POWER is pure and powerful are fools. America is not WHITE. It is not Black. It is not Hispanic. It was "founded" by people, although there was a group of people already living here...NATIVE AMERICAN INDIANS. This country has become a diversity of many ethnicities, and I truly believe that f**kers like those who committed this brutality upon this young man are merely afraid of no longer being "supreme" (in their eyes).

All crimes to me are HATE CRIMES. But when one is attacked and brutalized solely for the color of one's skin, we must send the message and put these bastards behind bars for infinity.

a very very sad story! why can we all just stop the violence and the hate!

This story is utterly heartbreaking. That poor young man in such despair to do such a desperate act. Prayers to him and his loved ones. There are no words to describe the hate I feel for his killers, yes, his killers.

Very sad that people can ruin a life because of their sickness (hate/bigotry) and it is a sickness a mental illness. We are living in a new century and this kind of crap is still going on, and among young people a generation that should know better.

I will never understand why someone can hate another because of their skin color, ethinic background or for any reason such as this.

I am sickened and angry and I hope nothing but DEATH FOR THOSE BASTARDS. Anyone who commits any heinous crime deserves life behind bars.


I say they should have a hot poker shoved up their asses and left there to burn them alive from the inside.

Very sad that people can ruin a life because of their sickness (hate/bigotry) and it is a sickness a mental illness. We are living in a new century and this kind of crap is still going on, and among young people a generation that should know better.

I will never understand why someone can hate another because of their skin color, ethinic background or for any reason such as this.

Indeed. The message is clear: The moment we try to fool ourselves into believing this kind of hatred doesn't exist in our communities, is the day it can take root and grow. Terrible things can and will happen and we must be ever vigilant against it.

By the way, does anybody know why Mr. Bush wants to veto the bill?

By the way, does anybody know why Mr. Bush wants to veto the bill?
Maybe it's because he knows it is really a "thought crimes" bill.

All crimes to me are HATE CRIMES.
Amen to that.
All violent crimes are "hate crimes". When you start delving into trying to decipher what a person was thinking, you are going into thought police territory, and that can lead to even looking for extraneous sources for who is responsible. Like if it was known that these criminals attended a speech by someone who spoke against Mexican immigration or something; the "hate crime" legislation is vague enough to possibly charge the person who made the speech with a "hate crime" also. It's not as ridiculous as it sounds. There are plenty of people being charged already with "hate" crimes just for voicing their opinion.

Sentence people for their crimes, not what you perceive their thoughts to be.

Make love and NOT war, please. There's enough Hatorade drinkers and bullies out there and we do NOT need anymore

Absolutely despicable.

Please, Do NOT use Drugs

Please, Do NOT use Drugs
Huh?