Poplar Bluff, MO: Fifteen-year-old Walter Currie Jr. was doused with gasoline, and then set on fire by a sixteen-year-old classmate. The attack occurred on June 13 in Poplar Bluff, a small Missouri town about 125 miles south of St. Louis. St. Louis Post Dispatch story.
Walter and his family say they believe this attack was racially motivated. The sixteen year old who was arrested for the attack on Walter has been released from jail. The juvenile court in Butler County has requested that the alleged assailant be tried as an adult, where he would face felony assault charges. No hate crime charges have been filed.
Blog
July 30, 2009 - 9:00pm
Fifteen-year-old Walter Currie, Jr. was doused with gasoline, and then set on fire by a sixteen-year-old classmate. The attack occurred on June 13 in Poplar Bluff, a small Missouri town about 125 miles south of St. Louis. St. Louis Post Dispatch story.
July 28, 2009 - 9:00pm
The recent arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates outside his Cambridge, MA home has sparked a national debate about racial profiling.
Yesterday, we took our cameras right outside our office door to Oakland’s Frank Ogawa Plaza, to find out what local residents think about the issues raised by the Gates arrest.
Does racial profiling persist in the United States? What was your response to Gates’ arrest? We want to hear your perspective! Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
![](https://www.niot.org/sites/default/files/styles/195x154/public/LateishaGreen-small.jpg?itok=qgqqYxXN)
July 21, 2009 - 9:00pm
On Friday, a jury found Dwight DeLee guilty of manslaughter in the first degree as a hate crime for killing Lateisha Green. This is the first hate crime conviction for the killing of a transgender person in New York state, and only the second such conviction in the United States. Though the trial is concluded and Lateisha’s family feels justice has been served, transgender people around the world face extremely high rates of discrimination and violence. Posts at Transgriot, Questioning Transphobia, and Feministe address the issues of pronoun usage, the lack of protection for trans people under New York hate crime laws, and the ongoing threat of violence to transg
![](https://www.niot.org/sites/default/files/styles/195x154/public/teish-green.jpg?itok=vH0lisDg)
July 21, 2009 - 9:00pm
On Friday, a jury found Dwight DeLee guilty of manslaughter in the first degree as a hate crime for killing Lateisha Green. This is the first hate crime conviction for the killing of a transgender person in New York state, and only the second such conviction in the United States. Though the trial is concluded and Lateisha’s family feels justice has been served, transgender people around the world face extremely high rates of discrimination and violence. Posts at Transgriot, Questioning Transphobia, and Feministe address the issues of pronoun usage, the lack of protection for trans people under New York hate crime laws, and the ongoing threat of violence to transgender people.