Hamilton Heights torturer found guilty

After five hours of deliberations, the jury found Robert Williams guilty on 44 of 46 charges.

Apparently the question of a racial motive was never brought up once in the trial. Williams’s choice of a white woman to hold captive in her apartment for 19 hours, during which time he repeatedly raped and sodomized her, then scalded her, disfigured her, and left her tied to a futon frame to burn to death was purely coincidental. Civilized people would not dare suggest otherwise.

And in Monday’s New York Post, Laura Italiano has an article on the background of Williams, who is the son of a crack dealer and who has been noticeably evil throughout his life, yet WAS ALLOWED TO WALK THE STREETS FREE.

How many times did talk radio host Bob Grant say it: once a person has given notice on society that he intends harm, he must be put away.

But liberal society will never learn this. It must “try” to give monsters “another chance.” It’s better to “try,” and let innocent people’s lives be ravaged and destroyed by monsters, than never try at all.

And here is the New York Times’ bland and uninformative story on the verdict.

- end of initial entry -

Rachael S. writes:

You write:

Apparently the question of a racial motive was never brought up once in the trial. Williams’s choice of a white woman to hold captive in her apartment for 19 hours, during which time he repeatedly raped and sodomized her, then scalded her, disfigured her, and left tied to a futon frame to burn to death was purely coincidental. Civilized people would not dare suggest otherwise.

My reaction is that it was racially motivated, but where is the proof, say, the victim recounting that he said “I hate whitey” or something like that? There may have been other reasons besides her color that she was targeted (though I doubt it). I read in one of the articles that he asked her if she liked people from Africa, but that was it. Do you think there was evidence to the contrary (besides the fact that he is black and she is white) and the police and defense lawyers chose not to pursue it because a) the other evidence was already so damning, and b) they didn’t want to appear controversial in order to protect their careers and their budgets?

LA replies:

We don’t know of any direct evidence that there was a racial motive. But, as far as we can tell from the superficial press accounts, the prosecutors never raised any question of motive in this crime, let alone of racial motive. They just established the facts that the defendant did the acts of which he was accused, and that was enough to get the convictions, and that’s all the prosecutors cared about.

So why did Williams do it? What made him want to hold a young woman captive and torture her for 19 hours? He wanted the sick pleasure of having complete control over another human being, to degrade, dehumanize, disfigure, and destroy her. Now it’s entirely possible that he would have done the same to a black woman. Again, I have no direct evidence that his motive was racial. However, given blacks’ hatred of whites and their frequently expressed vengefulness against whites, given the dancing-in-the-streets joy in black America over the acquittal of OJ Simpson, given the expressions by the black elite that a white woman “deserved” to be offed by Simpson, given the fact that large sections of black America still seethe with victimological hatred against whites, a hatred visible in a “high-level” church like Rev. Wright’s Trinity United, where intensely hate-filled statements about whites’ devilish evil are greeted with orgiastic whoops and cries, it is a reasonable assumption that the lower level of black, such as Williams, also has a racial hatred and vengefulness, and a desire to “have their way” with a white. This evident psychological reality, combined with the repeated demonstration by black criminals of the desire to engage in the sexual torture of whites, as seen in the Wichita massacre and the Knoxville atrocity, leaves us, in the absence of evidence showing that Williams’ motive was not at least in part racial, with the reasonable (though rebuttable) presumption that his motive was at least in part racial.

And I’ll bet even Undercover Black Man, David Mills, won’t have the brass to deny the reasonableness of what I just said.

Anthony Damato writes:

Regarding the rape/torture of the Columbia University student, what’s also dissapointing is that a jury required five hours to reach a verdict. We don’t know why so long considering the totality of evidence, but one can guess liberal guilt played some part.

Also, isn’t it cynical of me to think the victim, horribly violated and tortured, is just the sort who would would harbor the liberal ideas of moral equivalance, and racial-ethnic-multicultural universality that modern Western society ingrains on its white citizenry?

Mark Jaws writes:

I disagree with your imputing a racial motive to the Hamilton Heights torturer. While I agree with everything you said about the state of black hostility towards white America, in this particular case there seems to be NO PROOF of a racial hate crime. A perverted torturer motivated by race hatred would likely utter some epithets or other vile racist slander while plying his fiendish craft to his victim. As I have said before, even a “hard line fellow” such as Mark Jaws sticks to facts, and nothing else but facts.

LA replies:

I would share your view if I knew that that prosecutors had actually made Williams’s motive part of their case. But nothing I’ve read indicates that they said anything about his motive. Since (as appears) no evidence regarding any kind of motive was brought forward, we cannot truthfully say that there’s no evidence of a racial motive.

Again, I am not stating my belief regarding his possible motive as a conclusion, but as an inference that can be disproved by further facts.

Christopher Collins writes:

Re Mr. Damato’s comment, five hours doesn’t strike me as particularly long to reach a verdict on all the charges. Recall there were 46 charges. From the Columbia report:

“Williams was found not guilty of one charge of first-degree assault “with intent to cause serious physical injury … by means of a dangerous instrument,” referring to a kitchen knife in the victim’s apartment. He was also found not guilty of another charge of first-degree assault “with intent to disfigure another person seriously and permanently, and to destroy, amputate, and disable permanently a member and organ of such person’s body.”

Also, “Levine, answering questions from reporters outside the courthouse, called the verdict “totally disappointing” and said there is “definitely going to be an appeal” on several counts, particularly the grounds of prior occasion necessary for first-degree attempted murder with intent of witness elimination.”

Though obviously it might take some research, at first blush it would seem that a too hasty verdict would be more subject to appeal as a denial of defendant’s rights to due process and an impartial jury. In other words, the jury took an oath to reasonable deliberate. Six and a half minutes per count doesn’t seem too long.

David B. writes:

Why did the prosecutors not impute a racial motive to the Hamilton Heights torturer? I think it may have been to keep it as uncomplicated as possible. As I remember, during the trial of the perpetrators in the Central Park Jogger attack, there were crowds of blacks chanting outside the courthouse in support of the defendants. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office does not want a repeat of this scenario.

This aside, you never see police and prosecutors publicly call it a racial crime when blacks attack or murder whites, especially if it gets any publicity. In both the Wichita Massacre and the soon to be tried Knoxville Atrocity, law enforcement went out of their way to downplay “race,” as a motive. On the other hand, Nifong said over and over that the Duke LAX players were “racially motivated” to “rape a black girl.” This was for an obviously false charge that should not have lasted a day.

Finally, I noticed in the New York Times article, that DA Morgenthau had a comment. In the early 90’s, I saw an interview with Robert Morgenthau in which he said that he was concerned about “crime in the suites.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 25, 2008 12:49 AM | Send