The two are different, one is a felony the other is protected by the First Amendment. I know it sucks but people have a right to say whatever hateful things they want to say.
There was an eleven year old boy who at first was verbally attacked by a 41 year old man, that legally was no crime but then he encountered the child again and that was when the child was assaulted.
The courts have made a distinction between speech and assault, what the guy did at first was all verbal and no threats were made. Cornell School of Law puts it this way,
Assault is generally defined as an intentional act that puts another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact. No physical injury is required, but the actor must have intended to cause a harmful or offensive contact with the victim and the victim must have thereby been put in immediate apprehension of such a contact.
In other words… They can curse you out, call you vile names but as long as they do not threaten you with physical harm it is not a crime.* However, if they say they are going to beat you up or other physical harm they crossed the line and into the realm of a crime.
*Okay there is a caveat to that and that is harassment, speech can become a crime when it become pervasive. KREM 2 put it this way,
To verify when your first amendment rights are protected and when it turns into harassment KREM 2 talked to First Amendment lawyer David Bodney.
He said the line between your freedom of speech and harassment is drawn with three exceptions to your First Amendment rights. The first is, if the statement constitutes incitement. Meaning if there is a serious risk of imminent harm, it is possible your speech can be limited. The second exception is if the speech uses "fighting words" meaning if someone continues to provoke another in close proximity using language that would cause a person to respond aggressively. The final exception, is if the speaker says a true threat, which is where the speaker communicates in a way that is a true threat to the safety of the recipient. However, Bodney said these three exceptions are fairly difficult to prove.
"There are not a lot of fighting word cases out there, and there are not a whole lot of true threat cases out there. And thought the court recognizes this notion of what constitutes incitement, it's a very difficult standard to meet," Bodney said.
I was a moderator for a panel of lawyers on Connecticut new gender inclusive non-discrimination law. Somebody in the audience asked about her boss picking on her all the time and if it was discrimination? The lawyer asked her a question in reply, the question was, “Does he just do just to you because you’re trans or does he do it to everyone” To which the woman replied “No he does that to everyone.” and the lawyer said, “There is no law against being an asshole.”
The hate crime laws don’t protect you from assholes but it does protect you from violence or threats of violence.
Part II
Protected Hate Speech.
The only thing they could probably get them for is littering.
My town was targeted for hate speech by a neo-Nazis group where they threw out hate pamphlets.
Racist flyers in Connecticut are part of a rise in incidents of hate across New England
Connecticut Public Radio
By Frankie Graziano
July 8, 2022
People throughout New England are being confronted more and more by white supremacist incidents. There was a march on Boston on July 3 by a group called Patriot Front. Also, a Massachusetts-based group called the National Socialist Club of New England continues to drop racist flyers in Connecticut this summer.The Anti-Defamation League says that since February, racist flyers have appeared in 19 Connecticut towns – 10 since June 1.
“They might not be criminal but nonetheless they are things that communities need to be aware of because they represent white supremacist beliefs being spread throughout our state,” said Stacey Sobel, the director of ADL Connecticut.
The recent flyers come as ADL Connecticut reported a record high in antisemitic incidents in Connecticut in 2021. Reports of incidents jumped by more than 40% in 2021 compared to the previous year. Over the past five years, ADL Connecticut said it’s received more than 180 reports of incidents of antisemitic harassment, vandalism and assault. Reports of hate incidents have been on the rise across New England and the U.S.
Berlin, Waterbury, and Torrington are among local municipalities that have been blanketed by the racist flyers in recent weeks.They feature the National Socialist Club of New England logo. The flyers say the club is a “pro-white fraternity” and they call on “men of European descent” in the area to reach out to the club.
In Connecticut the Southern Poverty Law Center lists the active hate groups:
- ACT for America (Anti-Muslim)
- National Socialist Movement (Neo-Nazi)
- Patriot Front (White Nationalist)
- Proud Boys (General Hate)
And the CT Public Radio article goes on to say,
As for state police, a spokesperson says the Hate Crimes Investigative Unit of the Connecticut State Police is not investigating the incident.
And that is because they didn’t make any threat because no matter how obnoxious and vile the filers were they are still protected speech and it was labeled as a “hate incident.”
In Boston on July 2nd a group of white supremacists march through downtown and one of them assaulted a Black man. State and federal prosecutors are looking into hate crimes to be brought against the man.
Do not think just because Connecticut is a Blue state that everyone is singing “Kumbaya” together. There are some pretty red-neck areas in Connecticut especially in the northeast section of Connecticut.
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