Suspects in cross burning near Fletcher still free
Asheville Citizen - Times - Asheville, N.C.
Author: John Boyle Date:
Oct 19, 2010
Start Page: n/a Section: NEWS Text Word Count: 723 Document Text
A Henderson County woman said Monday that she is livid two juveniles police say were involved in a cross burning on her property remain free.
"They were still in school and on the bus with my children," Selena Wilson said. "This is not fair at all. First, (my children) had to go through this, and now nothing is being done about it, so what is this teaching my kids?
"As long as you're under age, you can commit a crime in Henderson County and nothing happens."
The Henderson County Sheriff's Office has identified two juvenile suspects and has sought juvenile petitions against them, sheriff's Capt. Jerry Rice said.
Deputies continued working the case Monday, but Rice said it's "not a situation where we can collect them and put them in adult jail."
The Sheriff's Office turned the investigative file over to Juvenile Services, "and Juvenile Services will determine how the case proceeds," Rice said.
"When they're less than 16 years of age, the determination to take someone into custody when there's not bodily injury or it's a nondeath event is the sole decision of Juvenile Services," Rice said.
Wilson and her three daughters were alerted to the burning cross Friday night when their dog started barking. The 4-foot-high cross was planted just outside their mobile home off Spring Flower Drive near Fletcher.
Wilson also said she is angry because her daughters, ages 12 and 14, have been repeatedly harassed at school and on the bus since they moved to the area two weeks ago. Wilson is white, and the girls' father is African-American. Her daughters were repeatedly called "the N-word," and the older girl was spit on, Wilson said, adding that one of the boys involved in the cross burning has been involved in the harassment.
Both attend the same school as her daughters, Apple Valley Middle School," Wilson said. "These kids (the suspects) get to ride the bus and look at my kids, sit in class and look at my kids," she said.
Her daughters were not harassed Monday, she said.
Apple Valley Principal Marcie Wilson said Monday that "if we should ever have a report of our students being involved in any sort of harassment, we take it very seriously."
"I have not been contacted by any law enforcement agency regarding the matter you referenced," Wilson said by e-mail. "Even if I had, and our students were involved, I would not be able to disclose any details of potential action, as it would be a violation of federal law and the student privacy act."
Rice said he is not aware of any other cross burnings in Henderson County in his 23 years of law enforcement.
But cross burnings still do happen nationwide.
"A reasonable estimate is 40-50 a year," said Mark Potok, director of the intelligence project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization based in Montgomery, Ala. "This sounds like a classic sort of example -- a Caucasian mom and mixed-race children. (Cross burnings) are probably still predominant in the South, but it's scattered all through the country." The message of a cross burning is simple, he said: "You and all the others like you, get out of town."
While the country is "clearly in a vastly better situation than" in the 1950s and '60s, racism still surfaces and may have spiked somewhat in recent years, partly as a backlash to the election of a black president, Potok said.
In 2008, a Rutherford County man was sentenced to more than two years in federal prison after pleading guilty to burning a cross in his neighbor's yard. The Rutherford County Sheriff's Office and the FBI investigated the case.
In 1992, three men unhappy about a mixed-race couple in the community burned crosses on their neighbors' front lawn on New Year's Eve in the Poison Cove community between Clyde and Waynesville in Haywood County. They were charged and sentenced for hate crimes.
Wilson's oldest daughter, Shara Horton, 17, also was in the home when the cross was burned Friday night. While she's upset with the overt racism, Horton said she doesn't hold the incident against the whole area.
"There's going to be stupid people everywhere you go," she said. "It seems like the ones who want to be ignorant are the ones who are right there in your face."
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission. Abstract (Document Summary) [...] (my children) had to go through this, and now nothing is being done about it, so what is this teaching my kids? "As long as you're under age, you can commit a crime in Henderson County and nothing happens."
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Author: John Boyle Date:
Oct 19, 2010
Start Page: n/a Section: NEWS Text Word Count: 723 Document Text
A Henderson County woman said Monday that she is livid two juveniles police say were involved in a cross burning on her property remain free.
"They were still in school and on the bus with my children," Selena Wilson said. "This is not fair at all. First, (my children) had to go through this, and now nothing is being done about it, so what is this teaching my kids?
"As long as you're under age, you can commit a crime in Henderson County and nothing happens."
The Henderson County Sheriff's Office has identified two juvenile suspects and has sought juvenile petitions against them, sheriff's Capt. Jerry Rice said.
Deputies continued working the case Monday, but Rice said it's "not a situation where we can collect them and put them in adult jail."
The Sheriff's Office turned the investigative file over to Juvenile Services, "and Juvenile Services will determine how the case proceeds," Rice said.
"When they're less than 16 years of age, the determination to take someone into custody when there's not bodily injury or it's a nondeath event is the sole decision of Juvenile Services," Rice said.
Wilson and her three daughters were alerted to the burning cross Friday night when their dog started barking. The 4-foot-high cross was planted just outside their mobile home off Spring Flower Drive near Fletcher.
Wilson also said she is angry because her daughters, ages 12 and 14, have been repeatedly harassed at school and on the bus since they moved to the area two weeks ago. Wilson is white, and the girls' father is African-American. Her daughters were repeatedly called "the N-word," and the older girl was spit on, Wilson said, adding that one of the boys involved in the cross burning has been involved in the harassment.
Both attend the same school as her daughters, Apple Valley Middle School," Wilson said. "These kids (the suspects) get to ride the bus and look at my kids, sit in class and look at my kids," she said.
Her daughters were not harassed Monday, she said.
Apple Valley Principal Marcie Wilson said Monday that "if we should ever have a report of our students being involved in any sort of harassment, we take it very seriously."
"I have not been contacted by any law enforcement agency regarding the matter you referenced," Wilson said by e-mail. "Even if I had, and our students were involved, I would not be able to disclose any details of potential action, as it would be a violation of federal law and the student privacy act."
Rice said he is not aware of any other cross burnings in Henderson County in his 23 years of law enforcement.
But cross burnings still do happen nationwide.
"A reasonable estimate is 40-50 a year," said Mark Potok, director of the intelligence project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization based in Montgomery, Ala. "This sounds like a classic sort of example -- a Caucasian mom and mixed-race children. (Cross burnings) are probably still predominant in the South, but it's scattered all through the country." The message of a cross burning is simple, he said: "You and all the others like you, get out of town."
While the country is "clearly in a vastly better situation than" in the 1950s and '60s, racism still surfaces and may have spiked somewhat in recent years, partly as a backlash to the election of a black president, Potok said.
In 2008, a Rutherford County man was sentenced to more than two years in federal prison after pleading guilty to burning a cross in his neighbor's yard. The Rutherford County Sheriff's Office and the FBI investigated the case.
In 1992, three men unhappy about a mixed-race couple in the community burned crosses on their neighbors' front lawn on New Year's Eve in the Poison Cove community between Clyde and Waynesville in Haywood County. They were charged and sentenced for hate crimes.
Wilson's oldest daughter, Shara Horton, 17, also was in the home when the cross was burned Friday night. While she's upset with the overt racism, Horton said she doesn't hold the incident against the whole area.
"There's going to be stupid people everywhere you go," she said. "It seems like the ones who want to be ignorant are the ones who are right there in your face."
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission. Abstract (Document Summary) [...] (my children) had to go through this, and now nothing is being done about it, so what is this teaching my kids? "As long as you're under age, you can commit a crime in Henderson County and nothing happens."
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
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