Hate crime shocks, puzzles
After a dead raccoon is found in a noose at a predominantly black church, community leaders ponder how to respond.
By ABBIE VANSICKLE
Published January 26, 2006
FLORAL CITY - On the day after news of a hate crime at a Floral City church became public, the message from community and faith leaders was the same: This sort of thing doesn't happen here.
"I think it's probably an isolated event," said Bishop Leonard Smith, a religious leader who recently organized the county's Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration.
Douglas Alexander, pastor of the Church Without Walls, called it the crime of a "flat-out stupid, ignorant person."
"I don't look at it as a hate crime," he said. "I look at it as ignorance."
On Saturday afternoon, someone found a dead raccoon hanging from a hangman's noose on the porch of the Mount Carmel Methodist Church, a predominantly black church, on U.S. 41 just south of the stoplight in Floral City. There was a note with a racist message next to the animal, according to the Citrus County Sheriff's Office.
A spokeswoman for the church said the congregation doesn't wish to comment on the incident, which the Sheriff's Office has designated a hate crime.
A hate crime is defined as "an act committed or attempted by one person or group against another, or their property, that in any way constitutes an expression of hatred toward the victim based on his or her personal characteristics," according to the state Attorney General's Office.
Community members were stunned and disgusted by the crime. All were adamant that crimes of racial hatred aren't a common occurrence in Citrus County.
"This is shocking news and very unlike this community," said Marcia Beasley, chairwoman of the Floral City Heritage Council. "To me, it sounds like some outsider."
Because Floral City isn't incorporated and doesn't have a civic association, Beasley said she didn't know what organized response, if any, would arise among the residents.
Both Alexander and Smith said they didn't know what the religious community would do to combat the crime.
Alexander, who grew up in Citrus County, said he didn't remember anything like this happening.
"That same person has got to face God for what they've done," he said. "We've never had a problem like that . . . even in the integration of schools."
Hate crimes have occurred in Citrus County, though, according to the state Attorney General's Office.
Since 1994, there have been 16 crimes designated as hate crimes. The most recent was reported in Inverness in April 2005, when a black man found a note in his mailbox that contained a racial epithet and a drawing of a person who had been hanged, said sheriff's spokeswoman Gail Tierney.
Statewide, hate crimes were up by more than 21 percent in 2004 from the previous year, according to the office. There were 334. Statistics for 2005 were not yet available from the office's Web site.
Perhaps the most high-profile local hate crime in recent years was the 1996 beating of a former Miss Citrus County, a white woman, and her boyfriend, a black man.
In March 1996, Amy Fallon, then 21, and her boyfriend, Robert Crowell, also 21, were attacked at Southside Harry's Bar and Grill. Witnesses said a group of about nine men and women sitting at a nearby table began insulting Crowell for dating a white woman.
Fallon and Crowell were beaten and kicked on their faces and heads. Crowell suffered the worst injuries, including a concussion, which required staples in his head after being smashed with a beer mug.
Chessley Yearwood, a 57-year-old Hernando County man, was later convicted of aggravated battery with great bodily harm in connection with the beatings and sentenced to the harshest penalty allowed: five years in state prison. Yearwood is currently on probation for the crime, according to the state Department of Corrections.
Abbie VanSickle can be reached at 860-7312 or vansickle@sptimes.com