Christmas Day in New York City is something that is celebrated in movies across the film. The perfect day with the snow falling and the greatest gift is always how it plays out in these scripts. For two tourists from South America, it became a nightmare thanks to a District Attorney (DA) who refused to apply the law or hate crime statutes.
When Steven Hutcherson walked into Trartinary, a restaurant at Grand Central Station, at 11:25 am, he saw the teen sisters sitting there. Yelling for all to hear, “I want all the white people dead!! I want to sit next to the crackers.” Suddenly, he lunged forward with a knife, stabbing the 16-year-old in the back, nicking her lung in the process. Quickly, he then stabbed her 14-year-old little sister in the thigh.
Just minutes before his attack Hutcherston had shown up at the restaurant and asked for a table while acknowledging that he wouldn’t be ordering anything. Refused seating, he then pointed at the teens and their parents, and began arguing that they were seated but not eating at the time. Suddenly, he yelled, ran off, grabbed the knife, and attacked.
Thankfully, Metro Transit Authorities (MTA) were nearby. In less than a minute, their officers responded, with Hutcherson dropping the knife as soon as MTA made contact. Now he faces charges of felony counts of attempted murder, assault, criminal possession of a weapon, and misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child. Previously arrested by the NYPD on 17 prior occasions and has been classified as being mentally disturbed.
His last arrest was on November 7th. In an attack with similar racially motivated comments, he told a stranger, “I’m gonna shoot you. I don’t care what kind of green card the government gave you. Open your mouth and say something. I will shoot you right now.” Pulling what the stranger believed to be a gun, they successfully fled Hutcherson, who was shortly thereafter arrested. Responding officers did not find a gun on him, but instead a knife.
Charged with criminal possession of a weapon, menacing, harassment, and assault, he was able to plead out to a lesser charge of third-degree assault, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced Dec. 12 to conditional discharge. Thus, making the crime, in essence, not happen.
As the DA’s office has now, in two consecutive cases with the same man, refused to include a hate crime statute, it is clear that they are not willing to take crime seriously. Their idea that the only time hate crimes apply is when a black man is attacked is horrific and, ironically enough, racist in itself. Crimes like the ones this man has been committing are a sign that the DA is not doing enough to adequately interpret and enforce the laws that are on the books.
Crimes like these also underscore the fact that, as a nation, it is high time we not only brought back the mental institutions for people like Hutcherson but also stopped making new laws at the drop of the hat. Instead, we need to work to enforce the laws on the books. When someone like this can take four serious charges like he received in November and plea it down to a single charge with time served, it is appalling. Especially with a rap sheet as long as his.
As Americans, we want to see less crime. We want to have safer neighborhoods and better lives. This isn’t a lofty pie-in-the-sky dream either, but a realistic desire, and one that shouldn’t be hard to accomplish. However, with liberals being so quick to call crime a “cry for help” and to shift blame away from the criminal, it’s hard to enforce them adequately.
