A local police department has cleared a group of white teens whom a Virginia Tech Professor accused of racially attacking him when they blasted rap music and dumped snow near his home.
Dr. Onwubiko Agozino, a sociology professor at the Virginia university, claimed in a Feb. 10 police report that eight white minors were racially targeting him when they pulled up to his Christiansburg home ”blaring offensive music, throwing ice blocks, and hurling a flurry of racist jabs, including the N-word,” the New York Post reported.
Local activists also jumped in to exploit the alleged hate crime with one called the “New River Valley Indivisible” pontificating in a lengthy Facebook statement the incident was a “calculated effort to terrorize and intimidate” Agozino and his family by “a group of 8 White young men riding in four 4 different trucks.”
“The actions of these individuals represent a direct assault on the safety, dignity, and civil rights of a member of our community,” the post read. “Such behavior is a stark reminder of the persistent and insidious nature of racism, and it has no place in a just and humane society.”
The Christianburg Police Department quickly launched an investigation but in two days determined the teens were simply attending a house party nearby and were clearing snow and ice from their truck bed as the rap music apparently blared the “profane” music containing the N-word — as rap music, mostly recorded by black hip hop artists, often does.
According to the department’s posted statement:
After several interviews, including a third-party eyewitness, and a detailed investigation, detectives found that a group of juveniles were attending an organized function at a home in the area. Before departure, two juveniles attempted to clear frozen snow and ice out of the bed of a truck, but were unable to completely remove, due to the slope of the vehicle. Upon departure, the juveniles stopped at a flat spot on the street, where a juvenile pushed out the remaining frozen snow and ice.
There have been incorrect reports that this may have been a targeted incident toward a specific residence or person based on racial bias. The Christiansburg Police Department does not tolerate discrimination, hate speech or racial profiling within the Town of Christiansburg. Our investigation has found no evidence of criminal intent or racial bias.
Fox News Digital reports:
The professor describes himself as a “scholar-activist who values inclusive excellence and diversity with critical attention focused on people of African descent and other marginalized groups around the world” who “emphasizes race, class, and gender issues in his contributions to learning, discovery, and community engagement beyond the boundaries of the classroom.”
In the outlet’s report on Friday, Agozino was not totally buying the results of the police investigation, questioning the probe and seemingly saying the teen’s intent, or lack of it, doesn’t matter.
“They claimed that they had no bad intent and the police concluded that there was no evidence of hate crime,” he said in a statement to the Fox online outlet. “I reminded the police that intent is only one element of crime because reckless or unreasonable behavior that is threatening to anyone is considered a breach of the law even if there is no intent to harm anyone.”
Agozino also told the online outlet that police stepped up patrols around his home “to prevent a repeat or escalation.”
But he also complained on the day after the incident a truck was parked near his mailbox as one of its passengers talked to the neighbor “from whose house the young White men emerged” the day before.
“I hope that the statement by the police that there is no evidence of a hate crime will not unwittingly embolden the suspects,” the educator told the online outlet.
Lowell Cauffiel is the recipient of Columbia University’s prestigious Paul Tobenkin Memorial Award for his series that reduced racial conflict and violence between the black customers and Christian store owners from Iraq known as Chaldeans in Detroit in the 1980s. He’s the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
