Hate crimes a reality for some Oklahomans

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Hate crime is alive in Oklahoma. Just ask Ed and Cathy Williams. The Jewish couple's Choctaw home has been firebombed and spray-painted with swastikas. They've endured

Monday, March 20th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Hate crime is alive in Oklahoma. Just ask Ed and Cathy Williams. The Jewish couple's Choctaw home has been firebombed and spray-painted with swastikas. They've endured telephone death threats. Williams was once assaulted in his yard.

Authorities have investigated but no arrests have been made.

Now, the Williamses are moving. "Three years ago, we said we weren't going to move, we weren't going to let them win. But I could fight back, then," said Williams, who has developed a progressive neuromuscular disease and can no longer walk.

The couple is not alone among victims of hate crime in Oklahoma. There were 74 hate crimes committed in the state in 1998. Authorities said half were acts of vandalism and 42 percent were committed by whites.

The Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation is required to track hate crimes and report the statistics to the FBI, said spokeswoman Kym Koch. The numbers show blacks are targeted 40 percent of time -- more than five times the number of hate crimes against homosexuals.

The mostly Hispanic congregation at Cristo Rey Lutheran Church in Oklahoma City had a brush with hate in October. Trinidad Castaneda said vandals stole and destroyed church property, but also left disturbing messages behind. White power. KKK. A swastika.

Castaneda said it was the first time any racial slogans had been used in acts of vandalism against the church. "I'm confused about that," he said. Members know they're "ina strange country that isn't theirs and some people don't accept them," he said. "Still, we haven't felt any kind of racist things in the past."

Kathy Carroll is the executive director of the Oklahoma City office of the National Conference for Community and Justice. She said what sets a hate crime apart from other acts of vandalism or violence is that it is meant as a message to a larger group.

"They get some satisfaction in damaging property or (injuring)a person, but they're sending a larger message of, 'We don't want you here,"' Carroll said. "The harm is done not just to the person but the community that person represents."

Proving attacks such as the Cristo Rey vandalism are hate crimes is not always easy, said Oklahoma City police Sgt. Nate Tarver.

Even if police can identify suspects, prosecutors have to show a history of racial bias on the part of the vandals before they can be prosecuted under the hate crimes ordinance, he said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been fighting hate crimes for several years, mailing booklets about the subject to citizens, educators and law enforcement in American communities.

Spokesman Mark Potok said the ugliness of a hate crime can cause those in the community in which it happens to examine themselves. He cited Jasper, Texas, where James Byrd was dragged to death in June 1998.

"The initial reaction there was, 'That's not us. We're not racist. We're 40 percent black. We have a black mayor,"' Potok said. "But in fact, when the town really took a hard look at itself, it turned out there was a fairly great divide between blacks and whites."

He said the town has made great strides since Byrd's death, including removing a century-old iron fence that divided the black and white sections of the cemetery.