Murphy: Feds right to charge Ohio man with hate crime for alleged plot to kill women

In what appears to be the first ever federal hate crime prosecution based on the victims being female, an Ohio man named Tres Genco was indicted for allegedly planning to shoot women college students.

Most people don’t think of violence against women as a hate crime, especially in Massachusetts where the state hate crime law excludes women, but Congress added women to the federal hate crime statute many years ago, and because Genco’s crimes crossed state lines, he can be charged in federal court.

Genco was a self-identified “incel,” which stands for involuntarily celibate. Incels are a recognized hate group in America, fueled by hatred of women and a core belief that women who reject men or deny them sex deserve punishment.

Genco reportedly threatened to “slaughter” women because he felt “hatred and jealousy” and wanted revenge. He blamed women for depriving him of “the power of life.” Put another way, Genco wanted to have sex with women and none of them wanted to have sex with him. Why on earth would women not be attracted to such a sweet guy.

Incels have been around for decades, and exist in many countries. Since 2014, men who define themselves as incels have been involved in at least seven mass murders of 46 people. In 2019, a man who threatened to kill “as many girls as I see” was convicted of making terrorist threats, but not hate crimes. In fact, until Genco’s indictment last week, no incel had ever faced a hate crime charge for committing violence against women. The case in Ohio is a long overdue move in the right direction.

Women endure massive amounts of violence because they are female. From sexual assault to domestic violence and stalking, women suffer far more harm because of who they are in society than does any other class of people suffer harm because of who they are. More than five women a day are killed by men, according to data tracked by Women Count USA; millions more each year are victimized by sexual and domestic abuse.

These data demand the routine filing of hate crime charges in every state but only a handful of cases have earned the label. Not labeling every crime that happens to a woman because she is a woman as a hate crime is its own form of hate.

Charging “hate crimes” is important because it conveys to the public that a crime caused harm not only to an individual victim but also to to an entire class of people, in this case women.

Some say we don’t need hate crime laws because all crime is hateful. But when people are victimized because of who they are, it hurts democracy itself. This should be acknowledged in the laws of every state, and law enforcement officials everywhere should be looking to Ohio for guidance on enforcement.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3jf5DJ8