Harmful actions

The Oregonian reported on April 3 that three Native Americans were beaten last week while they waited for a MAX train in Goose Hollow. According to the police report, five people attacked a 47-year-old woman and two men, aged 62 and 27, using slurs that referred to their Native American heritage. Mary Wheat of the Portland Police Department said, “The three were targeted because of their ethnicity.”

Now, this strikes an incredible amount of anger in most of us. But I am not sure what is more upsetting—the fact that there was a mere paragraph and a half posted in The Oregonian a week after than the accident occurred, or that no one did anything about it when the accident was happening at Goose Hollow, a popular MAX station used by many PSU students and people who are getting off of work (especially on a Thursday night at 7 p.m.).

Moreover, when the Portland Police Department said at the time of the accident that “we jump into action whenever we have a bias or a hate crime,” this doesn’t make much sense to me because the paragraph and a half I read gave the impression that this particular hate crime was not worth another couple of sentences to type.

The lack of information and reporting about who committed this crime and why is shameful. When two of the victims were taken to an area hospital and treated, while the older man sustained a broken jaw, this story should be worth your time.

Mainly because it was a felony charge or third degree assault and first degree intimidation, but also because this crime could have had people killed simply because they were Native American at a MAX stop widely used in Southwest Portland. I still do not understand why it is taking so long for the attackers to be identified.

Furthermore, just last Friday there was a massacre in Binghamton, N.Y. A gunman barricaded the back door of a community center with his car and then opened fire on a room full of immigrants taking a citizenship class, killing 13 people before apparently committing suicide, as reported by MSN.

It is disturbing that the United States is breaking records on not only unemployment numbers but also shooting rampages. In the past month alone the number of mass shootings have reached an unprecedented high, with five identified shootings and unemployment at 8.5 percent after 5 million jobs were lost in the recession. This is unbelievable.

This makes me question what it is about modern America that has provoked so much random violence. Sure the rise in unemployment and the increase in shootings could be linked, but how does that account for the recent hate crime on our own sidewalks?

Ultimately, it is impossible to have a single cause explain the rise in mass shootings and subsequently, hate crimes. It is important to be vigilant of the facts on the recent rise in criminality, and understand that hard times shouldn’t equate to harmful actions.