Two Chinese graduate students at USC shot dead in their car; their parents sue university

At this website I write extensively about white liberal America’s systematic cover-up of black and Hispanic violence. Here, reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, is a case in which a major liberal institution may be made to pay damages for that cover-up.

The lawsuit raises an interesting possibility: that the only way liberal society will ever start speaking the truth about black violence is if it is sued for telling lies. We could imagine, say, various liberal media organs being sued tens of millions of dollars for repeatedly publishing stories in which they have deliberately concealed black-on-white mob attacks and murders—stories which, by keeping whites ignorant of the ever-present threat of black racial savagery, led them to put themselves in situations where they were victimized by that savagery.

Here is the article:

The parents of two University of Southern California Chinese graduate students slain near the campus last month have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the university, saying the school misled them when it claimed that it ranks among the safest universities.

Ming Qu and Ying Wu, both 23-year-old electronic engineering students from China, were fatally shot April 11 while sitting in Qu’s BMW. Wu was found in the passenger seat; Qu stumbled to the steps of a nearby home and collapsed. Los Angeles police say they believe the killings were the result of a robbery gone wrong. [LA replies: See, here and here, my analysis of the nihilistic phrase, “a burglary/robbery/rape gone wrong.”] No arrests have been made.

On Wednesday, Wanzhi Qu and Xiahong Fei, Qu’s parents, and Xuyong Wu and Meinan Yin, Wu’s parents, filed the lawsuit against USC in a downtown Los Angeles court, seeking unspecific damages for the loss of their children.

Their attorney, Alan Burton Newman, alleges international students apply to USC through the university’s website.

In answer to questions about safety, the website states, “USC is ranked among the safest of U.S. universities and colleges, with one of the most comprehensive, proactive campus and community safety programs in the nation,” the lawsuit alleges.

The suit notes that USC says it provides 24-hour security to campus and in surrounding neighborhoods.

“USC is not one of the safest U.S. universities and colleges and does not provide twenty-four hour law enforcement services in the surrounding neighborhoods and is in a high crime area,” according to the suit.

The suit alleges that USC “provided no patrolling” in the neighborhood where the shooting occurred and persisted with the “clearly misleading” portrayal of safety even after the shooting. In a letter sent to the USC community after the shooting, campus officials stated that crime “is low compared to other areas of Los Angeles.”

The Adams-Normandie neighborhood that includes the shooting location ranks 27th out of 209 L.A. neighborhoods for violent crime, putting it in the top fifth of most violent areas, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of crime data.

In a statement in response to the lawsuit, USC attorney Debra Wong Yang said, “USC is deeply saddened by this tragic event, which was a random violent act not representative of the safety of USC or the neighborhoods around campus.”

“While we have deep sympathy for the victims’ families, this lawsuit is baseless and we will move to have it dismissed. As part of our support for the families we met with them and offered financial assistance as a gesture of kindness and sympathy. The attorney for the families subsequently instructed them to decline USC’s gesture and filed suit.”

The suit alleged that USC “actively solicits international students particularly from China for its graduate studies program for which it receives a substantial sum of money from tuition to help fund the university.”

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Alex P. writes:

Re the shootings of two Chinese students at USC:

The Adams-Normandie neighborhood that includes the shooting location ranks 27th out of 209 L.A. neighborhoods for violent crime, putting it in the top fifth of most violent areas, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis of crime data.

I used to work near USC, and took many of my lunches on the campus. The campus’ placement in the “top fifth” of LA’s most violent areas sounds about right to me. I don’t doubt that USC invests a great deal of resources into keeping their students safe, and generally they probably do a good job considering that naive, idealist middle-class-and-up youngsters living near campus are cheek-by-jowl with the usual ghettos and barrios that dominate the southern half of the City of People Who Believe in Angels is a recipe for disaster.

But of course the rates of crime and violence in black and Hispanic “hoods are so drastically higher than in white/Asian areas that anything short of a complete and constant police-state lockdown cannot guarantee the safety of every student for every second of every day. The law of averages requires that, at least occasionally, one or two law-abiding seekers-of-knowledge will fall victim to the forces of law-disregarding seekers-of-street-cred. Ming Qu and Ying Wu were “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” all right: a majority black/Hispanic area in 2012 America.

My heart goes out to the parents of these two foreign-student crime victims, but I don’t know that the parents’ lawsuit against the college will be successful. I can’t blame them for attempting their suit, but I suspect that USC can defend themselves pretty well against accusations of lax security. They are undoubtedly doing the best they can against odds made highly unfavorable by the downward-spiraling demographics. Once upon a time, that area of the city (as well as nearby downtown L.A.) were much safer than today—thriving, even. But of course, back then, the locals looked a lot different.

David M. writes:

Several years ago, my mother called a Jewish research center near USC. I do not know the name of it. She had some very old Hebrew books that neither my brother or I wanted, so she asked if this center would like to see them. After hearing them described, they said yes.

For the sake of brevity, I will not cover the details, but, they met her at their big gate, escorted her into their compound and locked the gate behind. They were delighted to get the books, and as mom went to leave they asked “Mrs. SoAndSo, which route do you need to go in order to get home?” She said she lived in Palm Desert and that she would be taking I-10. They insisted on having a car in front of, and behind, her car while she negotiated the traffic to the Harbor Freeway (Hwy 110). They followed until she was on I-10 and well through Boyle Heights before breaking off. They explained that their area had gotten so bad that—with her being elderly, white, and driving a nice car—she would be a target.

This is the “safe” neighborhood in which USC sits.

LA replies:

The precautions taken on your mother’s behalf inevitable bring to mind a question. Suppose that John Derbyshire had included this item in his list of things that white people must avoid doing in order to be safe from black violence:

10(l) Do not drive a car in the neighborhood of the University of Southern California unless it is part of a convoy.

Would National Review have fired him for his “nasty and indefensible” views? Would Andrew McCarthy have endorsed the firing, because Derbyshire had rejected Christian charity and was lumping black people in a group rather than seeing them as individuals, and thus harming E Pluribus Unum? McCarthy seems to have forgotten the basic reality that in order to practice E Pluribus Unum, people must first be alive.

May 19

Stephen T. writes:

You’ve remarked previously on the stupidity—in addition to the brutality—that seems to typify black criminals. Here’s another example relating to the amazingly speedy arrests of the probable killers of the two Chinese USC students. The murderers stole a cellphone from the victims, took it home and continued to use it (wanna bet they sent triumphant, grinning self-photos to girlfriends and gang members?). Apparently they were too I.Q.-challenged to process the fact that a stolen cellphone could be easily tracked by its phone number and, further, the exact location of its signals triangulated from cellphone towers. I don’t know a single teenager who isn’t aware of that fact. Of course, I know only white teenagers.

The photo at the top of the page is of the murderer’s neighbors; you can divine that the neighborhood is south central.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 18, 2012 12:51 PM | Send