sm1964
06-26-2008, 11:47 PM
W.Va. Woman Speaks About Torture Ordeal
AP Interview: West Virginia Woman Speaks About Torture, Urges Filing of Hate-Crime Charges
By SHAYA TAYEFE MOHAJER Associated Press Writer
CHARLESTON, W.Va. October 23, 2007 (AP) The Associated Press
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SHARE Megan Williams thought she was going to a party. That's why she tagged along with a woman she hardly knew, up a remote southern West Virginia hollow to a run-down trailer surrounded by beer cans and broken-down furniture.
Megan Williams, 20, of Charleston, W.Va., stands outside of her home Monday, Oct. 22, 2007. Williams was allegedly tortured, beaten and raped in Logan County last month by six whites, some of whom she says called her racial slurs.
(Jeff Gentner/AP Photo)"But there wasn't no party," Williams said. "I realized I'd made a bad mistake."
For at least a week, authorities say, the 20-year-old black woman was kept captive in a shed, tortured, beaten, forced to eat rat, dog and human feces, and raped by six white men and women who taunted her with racial slurs.
"They just kept saying 'This is what we do to n-----s down here,'" Williams told The Associated Press in one of her most extensive interviews since the shocking case made national headlines last month.
Seated in a rocking chair in her mother's living room, about 50 miles from that shed, the slight woman with cocoa-colored skin says she was hopelessly outnumbered by people who just wanted to hurt a black person.
"I just hope they fry for what they did to me. That's really all I got to say," she said. "I hope they fry."
West Virginia does not have a death penalty, but the six suspects could spend the rest of their lives in prison if convicted of rape and kidnapping charges.
Still, Williams and her family want more. They want the case prosecuted as a hate crime, something authorities have so far stopped short of doing.
A coalition of civil rights organizations and black leaders are now uniting behind the Williams family, organizing a hate-crime awareness march for Nov. 3 in Charleston in hopes of pressuring prosecutors to act.
"This case deserves national concern and national outrage," said Malik Shabazz, co-founder of Black Lawyers for Justice.
Prosecutors have backed off state hate-crime charges, saying they only carry an additional 10-year maximum penalty and could complicate their case. For one, hate crimes typically involve strangers, and Williams knew one of the suspects. She filed a charge of domestic assault against him in July.
:kfcnig
So, let's get this straight, when white people have a little get together and toss a nigger around a bit, it's considered a hate crime. When they do it to us, nobody really gives a shit. What planet am I living on?? :beware
AP Interview: West Virginia Woman Speaks About Torture, Urges Filing of Hate-Crime Charges
By SHAYA TAYEFE MOHAJER Associated Press Writer
CHARLESTON, W.Va. October 23, 2007 (AP) The Associated Press
70 comments FONT SIZE
SHARE Megan Williams thought she was going to a party. That's why she tagged along with a woman she hardly knew, up a remote southern West Virginia hollow to a run-down trailer surrounded by beer cans and broken-down furniture.
Megan Williams, 20, of Charleston, W.Va., stands outside of her home Monday, Oct. 22, 2007. Williams was allegedly tortured, beaten and raped in Logan County last month by six whites, some of whom she says called her racial slurs.
(Jeff Gentner/AP Photo)"But there wasn't no party," Williams said. "I realized I'd made a bad mistake."
For at least a week, authorities say, the 20-year-old black woman was kept captive in a shed, tortured, beaten, forced to eat rat, dog and human feces, and raped by six white men and women who taunted her with racial slurs.
"They just kept saying 'This is what we do to n-----s down here,'" Williams told The Associated Press in one of her most extensive interviews since the shocking case made national headlines last month.
Seated in a rocking chair in her mother's living room, about 50 miles from that shed, the slight woman with cocoa-colored skin says she was hopelessly outnumbered by people who just wanted to hurt a black person.
"I just hope they fry for what they did to me. That's really all I got to say," she said. "I hope they fry."
West Virginia does not have a death penalty, but the six suspects could spend the rest of their lives in prison if convicted of rape and kidnapping charges.
Still, Williams and her family want more. They want the case prosecuted as a hate crime, something authorities have so far stopped short of doing.
A coalition of civil rights organizations and black leaders are now uniting behind the Williams family, organizing a hate-crime awareness march for Nov. 3 in Charleston in hopes of pressuring prosecutors to act.
"This case deserves national concern and national outrage," said Malik Shabazz, co-founder of Black Lawyers for Justice.
Prosecutors have backed off state hate-crime charges, saying they only carry an additional 10-year maximum penalty and could complicate their case. For one, hate crimes typically involve strangers, and Williams knew one of the suspects. She filed a charge of domestic assault against him in July.
:kfcnig
So, let's get this straight, when white people have a little get together and toss a nigger around a bit, it's considered a hate crime. When they do it to us, nobody really gives a shit. What planet am I living on?? :beware