St. Louis Post-Dispatch
BELLEVILLE -- White supremacist groups say they want hate crime charges filed in the Belleville West bus attack case and are encouraging a protest.
Messages flashed across neo-Nazi and white supremacist websites today promoting an 11 a.m. protest on the Belleville courthouse grounds on Saturday.
“People in this town are rightfully angry at the double standard that we know how this would be working if the races were reversed,” wrote an announcement on the website for the National Socialist Movement, a white supremacist group. “We want to not only condemn these acts of violence, but also to try and persuade the state's attorney to file hate crime charges in this case.”
Belleville police officials said they are aware of the protest plans.
The beating, videotaped by the school bus camera, grabbed national attention and incited a heated debate about race. Police initially said the assaults, involving a white victim and two black assailants, may have been racially motivated.
Authorities later recanted that claim. But the accusation stuck, in both national media and among residents here.
Several students on the bus cheered the attacks and snapped cell phone pictures.
Prosecutors have said there is no evidence to warrant charges of a hate crime.
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