Texas Teens Won't Face Hate Crimes Charges

By CHRIS DUNCAN and JUAN A. LOZANO
The Associated Press
Friday, April 28, 2006; 11:10 PM

HOUSTON -- Prosecutors said Friday they won't seek hate crimes charges against two white teens accused of beating a 17-year-old Hispanic boy. Civil rights groups claimed there was no other reason for the attack.

Authorities said the suspects acknowledged they beat the boy but say it was because he kissed a 12-year-old girl. The teens claimed they were offended at the age difference between the victim and the girl, who also is Hispanic.

Detective Michael Weinel of the Harris County Sheriff's Department also said the youths were drinking, smoking marijuana and taking anti-anxiety drug Xanax.

"I don't know that the very beginning of the attack was racial," said prosecutor Mike Trent, "but there's no question that they were venting quite a bit of hatred in their hearts."

Authorities said the two teens dragged the boy into a yard, where they sodomized him with a plastic pipe from a patio table umbrella and shouted racial slurs.

Trent said the boy also had high levels of toxins in his organs, indicating the attackers may have poured bleach inside the pipe used to sodomize him. Doctors believe the boy passed out quickly and was unconscious for most of the attack.

Trent said that adding hate-crime charges to the aggravated sexual assault faced by David Henry Tuck, 18, and Keith Robert Turner, 17, would have no legal effect.

The victim remained in critical condition Friday. If he dies, the charge would be upgraded to capital murder because of the sexual assault, making Tuck eligible for the death penalty. Turner is too young to be eligible for execution.

Civil rights groups said Friday they wanted hate-crime charges.

"This clearly is a crime motivated by prejudice and bias against Hispanics," said Rick Dovalina, district director for the League of United Latin American Citizens. "No other reason exists for this crime to have been committed against this young boy."

Dovalina spoke at a news conference attended by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Coalition for Civil Rights for Immigrants. They said the would ask the Justice Department to intervene and would ask the state Legislature to raise the minimum penalty for a hate-crime from 5 years to 20 years.

On Friday, investigators revised some details of the attack, saying it occurred between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. Sunday. The boy, whom The Associated Press is not identifying because he is a juvenile victim of sexual assault, was found between three and six hours later.

Instead of an unsupervised party, they said the only youths gathered were the victim, the two suspects, and two children who lived in the house. The adult tenant of the house apparently slept through the attack, Weinel said. Police also corrected the victim's age to 17, from 16.

Trent said the suspects, both of whom have juvenile criminal records, threatened the adult's children with harm if they cooperated with the investigation.

Tuck and Turner are being held without bond. Charles Hinton, Tuck's attorney, did not return a call seeking comment. It was not known whether Turner had an attorney.