road from the rest of his body. Blood smeared a trail over a mile long. Research strongly suggests that hate crimes reported to the police have certain characteristics that distinguish them from other types of offenses. First, hate crimes tend to be excessively brutal; the hatred in such crimes is expressed when force is exercised beyond what is necessary to subdue victims or make them comply. Classifying the murder of James Byrd as "brutal" is definitely an understatement. A second characteristic of hate crimes is that they are often senseless or irrational crimes perpetrated at random on strangers. Finding a random black man walking down the road late at night and dragging him to death is not a common circumstance. Another characteristic of hate crimes is that they are usually perpetrated by multiple offenders; it is a group crime frequently carried out by young perpetrators operating together for the purpose of attacking the members of another group. The murder of James Byrd Jr. satisfies these characteristics, and unmistakably qualifies as a hate crime.
             Byrd's hometown of Jasper is a racially mixed town of 8,000 people located in a rural section of Texas; a Southern town with built in biases, but not racist. Despite of the nature of Byrd's murder, you cannot stereotype a community because of the actions of a few. According to the Mayor of Jasper, there had been no unusual racial problems in the town in the past (Cropper A16). "The kind of racial problems we had here were the kinds of things where you wouldn't get the promotion or the right jobs," said Byrd's sister Mary Verrett. "In all the time I grew up, there was never any outright bigotry, and none of us were afraid to walk the street. In fact, you could say we were pretty happy." Many people seemed to believe the crime did not reflect a deeper problem.
             On the other hand, Gary Bledsoe, president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Color...