[Kevin]

Going to do my devil's advocate thing here...

Whether the hate crimes laws fit this bill remains to be seen. Most are looking at the outcome here, which was horrible, but probably not really a foreseeable consequence of what was allegedly done. I'm hoping the prosecutors charge these two with something that is appropriate--not just something to respond to the masses wanting blood.

ETA: My understanding of most hate crimes statutes is that they are predicated on the defendant being motivated in whole or in part by the fact that the victim falls into a protected class of persons. So before we'd know whether the hate crime fit, we'd have to know what actually motivated this activity.

College kids do some pretty stupid impulsive things. This could very well just be a case of semi-ordinary college hijinks gone horribly wrong. There are a lot of calls for condemnation prior to all of the facts coming in.