Troy Knapp’s killing was 10 years in the making, a gradual death by inches and degrees.

His brutal beating at the hands of an angry mob sparked outrage and spurred marches a decade ago. But long after the headlines faded, Knapp soldiered on in a battered and broken body that no longer responded to his commands.

Bedridden, in chronic pain and saddled with seizures, Knapp hung on until Nov. 6, when his body finally gave out for good. At age 43, he became North Charleston’s 11th homicide of 2009, the victim of a slow-motion killing too old to carry the possibility of a murder charge.

Knapp died as a result of severe injuries he suffered in his October 1999 beating,

Charleston County Coroner Rae Wooten said. But there is nothing more police can do. South Carolina law won’t allow a murder prosecution in a case where the victim lives more than three years after his injuries were inflicted.

Six men were convicted of lynching in the attack on Knapp. Just two remain in prison, though they are expected to be released within the year.

That doesn’t sit right with Knapp’s family.

“I think it sucks,” said Angela Knapp, his sister and caretaker. “Their lives are just getting started as his is ending. I think they should at least have to pay to bury him.“

Knapp, a former auto mechanic, was 34 when he and friend Gary Thornburg were attacked while riding their bicycles near Bexley Street and South Rhett Avenue. Thornburg escaped serious injury, but Knapp was beaten so badly he was in a coma for weeks.
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Police initially charged 16 suspects between the ages of 14 and 22. The case stoked racial tensions, as the suspects are black and the two victims white. But police have said robbery, not race, appeared to be the motive for the assault.
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Knapp’s family went into debt to pay for his funeral, his sister said. He never got a dime of the restitution money his attackers had been ordered to pay, and no life insurance company would touch him. If his aunt hadn’t offered a burial plot next to his grandparents, Knapp’s family might not have had a place to lay him to rest, Angela Knapp said.
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Source/Full Story:  The Post and Courier

The 89-year-old man charged with a deadly shooting at Washington’s Holocaust museum died Wednesday in a prison hospital, authorities said.

At Butner federal prison in North Carolina, spokeswoman Denise Simmons announced that James von Brunn died shortly before 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Simmons said von Brunn had “a long history of poor health which included chronic congestive heart failure and sepsis.” She said he was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Von Brunn’s lawyer, A.J. Kramer, called the death “a sad end to a tragic situation,” but declined further comment.

Source/Full Story:  FOXNews.com

A prison guard who acknowledged being a member of white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan has been fired for belonging to a subversive or terrorist organization, a violation of the county agency’s code of ethics.

Wayne Kerschner, an Alachua County Sheriff’s Office corrections officer, was fired Tuesday following a 10-month internal investigation. The investigation revealed that Kerschner applied online for membership to the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan a year ago, paid US$30 a month for access to a members-only Klan Web site and that the group did a thorough background check that included his credit history before allowing him to join. The Klan has “extremely high standards,” Kerschner told investigators, according to an administrative investigation report released Thursday. “They do a complete criminal background check on everybody.”

A spokesman for the sheriff’s office didn’t return a phone call Thursday, and Kerschner’s telephone number was not listed.

Source/Full Story: The China Post

I guess the big problem with the whole Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom case NOT being a hate crime is that neither of the victims lived long enough to tell anyone that they had been called bad names.

A white homeless man was charged today with a hate crime after allegedly threatening a black teenager outside a drug store.

Ronald Allen Bramlett, 55, was charged with felony counts of aggravated assault and criminal threats. He also faces sentencing enhancements and allegations for hate crimes, the personal use of a deadly weapon and prior convictions for a 1994 bank robbery in Oregon and a petty theft in 2001, according to Susan Kang Schroeder, a spokeswoman for the Orange County District Attorney’s office.

The victim and his friends were standing in front of a CVS pharmacy at 1835 Newport Blvd. when Bramlett allegedly made racial slurs, Schroeder said. Bramlett allegedly claimed to be a member of a white supremacist gang and allegedly told the teenager he didn’t have a right to look at him.

Bramlett was also accused of challenging the boy to a fight while waving a knife and threatening “to cut you up, boy,” according to Schroeder.

Bramlett faces up to 18 years and eight months in prison if convicted.

Source/Full Story: KPCC

There’s a question we Israelis won’t ask ourselves about the Palestinians, especially not about Gaza. The question is taboo. Not only won’t anyone ask it out loud, but very, very few people will dare ask it in the privacy of their own minds.

However, I think it’s time we start asking it, privately and in public. If we don’t, I think there’s going to be Operation Cast Lead II, then Operation Cast Lead III, and each one is going to be worse than the last, and the consequences for Palestinians and Israelis are going to be unimaginable.

The question we have to ask ourselves is this: If anybody treated us like we’re treating the people in Gaza, what would we do?

We don’t want to go there, do we? And because we don’t, we make it our business not to see, hear or think about how, indeed, we are treating the people in Gaza.

Source/Full Story: Jerusalem Post

Idiots…

A city correction officer took a cell phone photo of his co-worker sleeping on duty, leading to disciplinary action against both of them.

The photo shows guard Nadja Green, in uniform, leaning back in a chair with her arms folded on her chest, eyes closed and mouth open. An inmate is standing next to her, making a “peace” sign.

Source/Full Story: FOXNews.com

Tyler County officers on Saturday nabbed a 31-year-old white supremacist charged in the Christmas Day shooting death of a convenience store owner in Liberty County, and authorities are investigating whether the killing is a hate crime.

Stevie “Bubba” Walder, 31, is charged with capital murder, accused of shooting 50-year-old Naushad Virani while robbing the Chubby’s Convenience Store on North Main in Liberty County, said Hugh Bishop, public information officer for Liberty police.

Virani, a husband and father, was shot in the head.

Walder, whose many tattoos include a swastika and a skull, was arrested without incident.

But, said Bishop, Walder has not been as cooperative since his arrest, verbally threatening jailers since being put behind bars on Saturday.

His criminal background in Texas includes convictions for a terroristic threat and burglary of a habitation, court records show.

Walder failed to appear in a Harris County court Dec. 4 on a charge of aggravated assault of a family member, forfeiting a $40,000 bond, according to court records.

On Christmas Day, a couple found Virani lying in blood on the floor of his store around 10:30 p.m.

Bishop said investigators are unsure if Virani was targeted for his ethnic background or if robbery was the only motive.

Source/Full Story: Houston Chronicle