What is a hate crime?

What’s more of a hate crime, a Jewish student whose jaw was broken… or a burnt Koran left outside a mosque? Lansing State Journal reports that:

'The 19-year-old victim, Zachary Tennen, told his parents and the police that two men with shaved heads broke his jaw at an off-campus party in East Lansing. The men asked whether he was Jewish, his mother and father, Tina and Bruce Tennen, said, then raised their arms in a Nazi salute, chanted “Heil Hitler” and knocked him to the ground. They then “stapled me in the back side of my bottom teeth, starting in my gums and going upwards,” his father said, reading from Zachary’s statement to East Lansing Police.'

What a horrible experience but according to the same news report:

'Though the incident has provoked outrage around the state, police haven’t found evidence so far to support the idea that it was a hate crime, (East Lansing police Capt. Jeff Murphy) said.

“With a hate crime, the motive is what’s in question. We have the victim’s family saying that he was assaulted because of his religion and that’s obviously a very serious thing,” Murphy said. “The problem is, right now, we don’t have anybody else who says that’s the case. In fact, we’ve got witnesses that say that was not at all the case.”

It is interesting to note that whilst the East Lansing Police are currently sceptical as to whether this was a hate crime, they were less reticent when a burnt Koran was left outside East Lansing's Islamic Centre last September. In that instance the East Lansing Police Department is offering $10,000 for information that leads to the identification and prosecution of those responsible for the act. Is it really the case that the East Lansing Police deem a burnt Koran merits a $10,000 reward but a badly beaten Jewish college student's evidence can be closely questioned?

You won't be surprised to learn that the BBC have not reported this news story.