We really were not told much about him by the media except that he was a Mexican-American, who was running back on the Klein Collins High School football team and was the homecoming prince as a freshman. Most notably people remember him as the victim of a hate crime that took place on April 22, 2006 at the home of Gus Sons that was triggered by an accusation that David tried to kiss Danielle Sons, Gus’ the underage sister. What we have been told through various media outlets is that David was stomped and burned with cigarettes, and his attackers poured bleach on him before leaving him for dead. After his brutal assault, he was hospitalized for more than three months and underwent through 30 operations. What seems very odd is why Gus, and friend he met at Highpoint North, an alternative school where David was sent for fighting, didn’t call the police until the next day. According to Mike Trent, Assistant District Attorney for Harris County, there was more to the story than what actually was being reported by the media.

In the 2007 Jan/Feb edition of Journal of the Texas District & County Attorneys Association, Trent wrote that Gus, a small-time drug dealer, were already friends with Tuck and Turner and “Gus’ nickname for Tuck was “Skinhead David” because of Tuck’s shaved head, bigoted views, and neo-Nazi tattoos.” The fight started when Tuck spewed his racial venom against Latina/os when he referred to them as “wetbacks.” An intense argument broke out between Tuck and David. According to Trent (note – You will notice Trent changed David’s name to Billy Reyes and I am not sure why this was done. Warning: the text contains graphic detail of the heinous crime):

Not long thereafter Gus discovered that his bag of narcotics, some of which he had picked up at the Crawfish Festival, was missing. Upset at the prospect of losing more than $300 worth of drugs, Gus asked Billy about them, and Billy denied stealing the drugs. A short time later, as Gus, Tuck, and Turner were smoking on the front porch, the highly inebriated Billy attempted to kiss Danielle. Danielle reported it to Gus, who then confronted Billy. Tuck accused Billy of stealing the drugs and trying to rape Danielle, both of which Billy denied. Without any further warning, Tuck slugged Billy in the face hard enough to knock him into a dog kennel. Billy just lay there, too drunk and stoned to get up. Sensing easy prey, Tuck and Turner dragged Billy into the backyard. Gus again accused Billy of kissing Danielle, hit him once in the chest, and backed off. That ended Gus’ participation but not the assault.

Tuck and Turner began kicking, beating, and stomping Billy Reyes, Tuck wearing black, steel-toe boots, one of which was emblazoned with a swastika. Yelling “Beaner!” and other racial epithets, Tuck inflicted most of the damage. After one especially vicious kick, Tuck shouted “White power!” and gave a Nazi salute. Unable to fight back or defend himself in any way, Billy just lay there and took it, mumbling and groaning occasionally. Undeterred, or more accurately encouraged by the lack of resistance, Tuck and Turner began stripping off Billy’s clothing.

“If you had any white in you, you would be helping me,” Tuck told Gus. He then pulled out a silver pocketknife. When Gus started to protest, Tuck only glared at him. “Don’t bitch out on me now,” he told the frightened Gus, and began slashing at Billy’s bare chest. He was making superficial wounds, almost as if he was trying to draw something. Detectives would later come to believe Tuck was attempting to carve a swastika.

Taking the cigarette, [Tuck] began touching the tip of it to Billy’s bare skin, burning him on the arms, legs, back, and buttocks. Turner lit up another cigarette and joined in. Finally, Turner put the cigarette out right between Billy’s eyes. Tuck chuckled, “Now he looks like a f***ing Hindu!”

Billy could no longer speak because Tuck had stomped on his throat hard enough to break one of his tracheal rings. All he could manage was a weak, agonized moan. He lay there a few feet from the patio, naked and helpless. And now it was Turner who had an idea.

Walking over to the patio table where Gus was, Turner grabbed a pipe standing in the center of it. It was a white pipe made of PVC that served as the lower half of some long-forgotten umbrella. … The lower half abruptly tapered to a sinister, conical point. Turner carried it over to where Billy lay facedown on the ground.

Squatting beside him, Turner shoved the white pole between Billy’s buttocks and into his rectum, making sure that the sharp point was inside the anus. He then looked up at Tuck and, holding the pole with the blunt end angled upward, motioned with his head. Taking the invitation, Tuck viciously stomped on the blunt end of the pole with the bottom of his combat boot as hard as he could. Billy moaned sharply. Turner laughed. Tuck stomped the pole a second time even harder. Doctors later estimated that the pointed pipe went 8–10 inches inside Billy’s body, rupturing his bladder and colon in the process.

While Turner tossed Billy’s shoes over the fence and began burning his clothing in a barbecue grill, Tuck returned to a frightened Gus. “Do you have any bleach?” he demanded. “We’ve got to get rid of the evidence.” Gus shook his head no, but Tuck knew where the laundry room was and went inside to look for himself. He returned with a full bottle and a warning glare for Gus. “If you tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you,” he said, walking to the edge of the backyard where Billy lay, the pole still inside him. Turner joined him there.

Taking the cap off the bleach, Tuck poured the bottle into Billy’s face, eyes, and open mouth. He poured bleach all over Billy’s naked body, poured it down the pipe and into his traumatized abdomen as well. (Even seven months later at the trial, Billy still had visible areas of skin the bleach had burned off. The physicians who treated him did not think that bleach could account for the reaction they saw in Billy’s immune system. They believe other chemicals, perhaps something like acetone, were poured on and in him.)

And at last, it was over. It had probably been around midnight when the confrontation began. Tuck and Turner had taken their time with Billy, as if savoring each moment of torment. It was now past 3 a.m. Leaving their victim for dead, the two leisurely went inside, warning Gus of the consequences if he reported them to the police. Scared and ashamed, shaking from the drugs he had taken and from what he had witnessed, Gus did nothing. He went inside and passed out on his living room couch. When he came to later that morning, it was around 9:45. Going outside to feed the dog, he saw Billy’s naked body in the backyard, and everything came rushing back. Running inside, he pounded on his mother’s door and yelled for her to call 911. Then he helped Billy inside to the kitchen table. Billy had lain injured in the backyard for at least six hours.

Gus, who had popped more alprazolam while the police were on their way, lied and claimed to know nothing about the assault. Danielle, who had witnessed the beating from the sunroom and her upstairs bedroom window, also feigned ignorance.

There is more, Trent mentioned that Gus and Danielle “had not been honest with detectives initially and had minimized their own involvement in the offense.” He also mentions that during the investigation Tuck stated that Danielle Sons sexually assaulted the victim with the pipe, but due to “legal warnings” that statement was suppressed. However, there could be some amount of reality to what Tuck had said; according to Trent, Danielle was “cold and sullen” and “showed no emotion” when she was on the stand. In fact, when she was questioned on how she injuryed her big toe, which was noticeably bruised the next day according to witnesses, she claimed she had stubbed it on a curb.

The obvious question is what drives people like Tuck and Tuner to muster up such a strong feeling of hatred towards another human being. Hatred so strong that lead to an assault that was intended to strip David Ritcheson of his personal identity and degrade him to an object that could be insulted and sodomized.

Earlier this year, President Bush vowed to veto the expansion of the hate crimes bill that would have would have broaden the federal authority to aid state and local law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting hate crimes motivated by race, religion, national origin and color, as well as sexual orientation, gender and disability. Bush’s reason was that his “senior advisor’s” AKA James Dodson, of socially conservative lobbying group Focus on the Family, felt that it would “muzzle people of faith who dare to express their moral and biblical concerns about homosexuality.” What Dodson refuses to see is that the hate crimes bill is not intended to go after people like him and is ilk who enjoy spewing venom diatribes at a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, the law is intended to go after the criminal actions motivated by this bias.

The sad truth, hate crimes are motivated by a deep hatred toward particular groups and their intent is not only to hurt their victims but also to send a powerful message of intolerance and discrimination to all members of the group to which the victim belongs. For example, Gus withheld his ethnicity from Tuck knowing how he felt towards minorities. Without hate-crimes legislation that makes such a connection between bias and intention explicit, many jurors will continue not to equate a generalized racial/sexual/religious/disability intention to a specific hatred of an individual enemy.

Although David Ritcheson remembers nothing of his attack, he did testify about it during a congressional hearing back in April on the pending hate-crimes bill, H.R. 1592, the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007.”

Weeks later I recall waking up in the hospital with a myriad of emotions, including fear and uncertainty. Most of all, I felt inexplicable humiliation. Not only did I have to face my peers and my family, I had to face the fact that I had been targeted for violence in a brutal crime because of my ethnicity. This crime took place in middle-class America in the year 2006. The reality that hate is alive, strong, and thriving in the cities, towns, and cul-de-sacs of Suburbia, America was a surprise to me. America is the country I love and call home. However, the hate crime committed against me illustrates that we are still, in some aspects, a house divided. I know now that there are young people in this country who are suffering and confused, thirsting for guidance and in need of a moral compass. These are some of the many reasons I am here before you today asking that our government take the lead in deterring individuals like those who attacked me from committing unthinkable and violent crimes against others because of where they are from, the color of their skin, the God they worship, the person they love, or the way they look, talk or act.

As much as he truly wished the trauma would just go away “by not thinking about it,” the sad reality it was too much for him to bear. It might be that David was beginning to recall his horrific ordeal, Carlos Leon, the family’s attorney, told reporters that things were beginning to change over the last month or two, but declined to discuss specifics, just that David Ritcheson was starting “to externalize his pain” to his parents and other relatives.

David Ritcheson, may your soul be free of the demons that haunted you, your memory be remembered, and may you finally have found peace.

“We have no time to listen to Jewish American children!!! If you don’t believe us, just try talking to us.” Then there is an obscene reference to “a homoerotic cop” and what that cop should do to Weiss. It concludes “Heil Weiss!”

The photos below are what councilman’s staff spotted glued on his front doors. One flyer was written in German and the other was written in English.

According to ABC 7, Police say they have a good idea who did it, but are not releasing that information yet. Capt. Jim Miller, LAPD:

“We have located a witness who observed someone about 6 a.m. this morning posting these materials. Based on that description, and some other incidents that have occurred involving the council office in the previous days, we believe we have identified the suspect in the case and we’re working further towards his apprehension.”

This was obvious a hate targeted at Weiss, not only because he is Jewish but also because of his strong ties to the Jewish community. As hate crimes are suddenly becoming a national past-time, the Great Decider decided to veto the expansion of the [tag]hate-crime[/tag] law, stating that “his senior advisors” are recommending that he veto the bill. Sadly, the House vote fell short of the two-thirds majority that would be necessary to enact the bill over Bush’s veto.

In the Senate, the expansion of the bill is named after Matthew Shepard, the gay Wyoming college student whose fatal 1998 beating helped inspire the legislation. Shepard’s parents were among those who have lobbied for the bill’s passage.

Also spurring the measure were other high-profile incidents, including the 1999 shooting attack on a Jewish community center in the San Fernando Valley by a white supremacist.

The bill would have expanded the definition of a hate crime, which would have broaden the federal authority to aid state and local law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting hate crimes motivated by race, religion, national origin and color, as well as sexual orientation, gender and disability.

It was attacks like the one that happened one year ago, when two [tag]neo-Nazi[/tag] fucks – David Tuck and Keith Turner – tortured an innocent Latino that the hate-crimes legislation was created for.

David Tuck, 18, a neo-Nazi roughneck with a reputation for racist outbursts, confronted the Latino teen, with whom he had previously consumed a cocktail of vodka, marijuana, cocaine and Xanax, a prescription anti-anxiety medication, and dragged him outside. With the assistance of his friend Robert Turner, 17, Tuck then commenced a four- to five-hour beating in which the victim was stripped, kicked with steel-toed boots, and severely sodomized with a patio-umbrella pole. Finally, Tuck and Turner stood their victim against a fence and poured bleach all over his body. According to prosecutors, Tuck at one point also attempted to slash something into the semi-conscious victim’s chest and burned him with cigarettes. Witnesses say Tuck yelled ethnic slurs and shouted, “White power!” during the attack.

In fact, it was because this case that Congress decided to expand the hate crimes law. The federal government was unable to use existing hate crime laws to prosecute his attackers because the assault took place on private property. Now that Dudya veto the bill, it sends a clear message to every xenophobic white supremacist nut case that they are allowed to beat their victim in their home because the federal government won’t be able touch them.

This just illustrates that this country has little regard in provide any type of justice to counter not only the rising tide of anti-Hispanic hatred, but the rising number violent hate crimes throughout this country.

Lastly we have the story of a flash-based video game that’s spreading through internet via e-mail called “Border Patrol“. The object of the game is to kill as many “wetbacks” as possible as they scramble across the US border. The targets included: ‘Mexican Nationalist,’ ‘Drug Smuggler,’ and ‘Breeder’ (pregnant woman with two small children).

It was reported on NBC San Diego that the site is being run a neo-Nazi site called “The Insurgent” who is run by jackbooted fascist Tom Metzger.

The game is part of a Web site called “The Insurgent.” Information on the Web site says that it is based in Temecula, Calif., just north of the San Diego-Riverside county line. The site claims that Tom Metzger, the head of White Aryan Resistance, is responsible for the content.

“Border Patrol” is just one of five games on the Web site that targets people because of their race.

So who is Tom Metzger? Metzger, is a former television repairman from Fallbrook, California, may be America’s most notorious hatemonger. His nearly 30-year career in the radical right has included affiliation with the John Birch Society in the 1960s, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the 1970s, which was led by David Duke at that time. Metzger became the Grand Dragon for the State of California. Metzger was also a minister in the Christian Identity movement. Metzger continues to cultivate his flying monkey squad through his web site, Resist.com and his monthly newspaper, White Aryan Resistance (WAR).

After a fight with David Duke, Metzger broke away from KKK to form the California Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. But this is were the story gets really interesting. In 1980, this jackbooted racist won the ended up winning the Democratic Party nomination for the US House of Reps in a San Diego-area district, but before the primary Metzger was a registered Repthug, but changed party.

In 1980, Metzger won the Democratic Party nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives in a San Diego-area district with over 40,000 votes. Metzger had changed his party registration from Republican to Democrat earlier in the year. The Democrats disavowed Metzger’s candidacy, instead endorsing incumbent four-term Republican Clair Burgener. Metzger lost by over 200,000 votes in November to a several-term incumbent in a heavily Republican district.

As to why he registered as a Dem, who knows, it was never said, however, it is pretty interesting the well known anti-immigration politician Pete Wilson, who severed as CA’s US Senator and Governor, was Mayor of San Diego (1971-1983) during the time all of this happened. Wilson’s US Senator (1983-1991) election was at the same time Burgener decided no to run for re-election and Metzger decided to run also for the US Senate in 1982. winning almost 76,000 votes (and 2.8% of the vote) in the Democratic Party Primary. Nah…must be the tin foil is on too tight. Or maybe…in John Wester’s Taxqueña, story about three migrants who run the border and into the KKK, Wester does provide an interesting take on Metzger’s little stint as a Democrat.

The brotherhood in this case is the Ku Klux Klan. In 1980, the Republican incumbant, Claire Burghner, was running unopposed in his San Diego congressional district. The Democrats didn’t want to waste their money running against him as they had in the past. On the last day one could file to run in the primaries, Tom Metzger, one time Grand Dragon of the KKK and head of a group of racists called WAR, White Aryan Resistance, filed to run in the Democratic primary. The Democrats hastily threw in a candidate to run against Metzger, but Metzger had the jump on them and won. He ran against Burghner in November.

Metzger lost, of course, but for the few months leading up to the November election, he sat on the Democratic Central Committee, which was mandated by the Democratic Party’s policy. From this bully pulpit, Metzger advocated patrolling the Mexican border by upstanding patriots, to stop Mexican migrants looking for work from crossing illegally, The Ku Klux Klan answered the call.

That summer, 1980, there was a small article buried in the back pages of the San Diego Union stating that in the course of the last year, 50 bodies of murdered Mexicans had been found in the hills, mountains and deserts of San Diego county.

In 1995, in Mother Jones, California Schemer: What You Need to Know About Pete Wilson, Dale Maharidge writes how Pete Wilson changed from liberal to a conservative:

When Wilson was elected mayor of San Diego in 1971, he protected wetlands and fought developers. More significantly, he forced the city and its contractors to hire minorities.
…
Robbins and Kearse agree on the moment Wilson changed: in 1972, when the Republican National Convention, set for San Diego, was abruptly switched to Miami. There were several reasons, among them the fear of anti-war protests.

Wilson took the decision personally, says Susie Davenport, also one of Wilson’s first minority hires. “He was angry. He figured that the liberal Pete that we knew was no longer going to make it to where he wanted to go. Minorities simply could no longer help him accomplish his goals. All of a sudden we could do nothing right. Everything changed.”

It is interesting that Metzger and Wilson have the same view with it comes to immigration. When Pete Wilson was governor, riding on the success of the racist Prop 187, the initiative that sought to deny education and other services to illegal immigrants and later struck down in 1994, Wilson decided to run Willie Horton-like attack ads depicting a bunch of wily Mexicans invading the Mexico-California border. In other words, he decided to scare Californians to death by spreading propaganda about some Mexican invasion. The same scare tactics being used today.

But the most interesting is Metzger’s renewal interest in CA politics when Arnold Schwarzenegger ventured into the governor’s recall election. Schwarzenegger who ran his campaign modeled after Wilson, one would think some like Metzger would endorse Schwarzenegger. Not so. During the recall election, Pete Wilson, who happened to be chairman of the Schwarzenegger campaign, Metzger decided endorse California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the second statewide Hispanic officeholder in California’s history as an American state.

A self-described racist has endorsed California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante in the California recall election, praising the candidate for being what he calls “a separatist,” based on Bustamante’s past association with a racist Hispanic organization.

The unusual endorsement by Tom Metzger, former Grand Wizard of the California Ku Klux Klan and director of the White Aryan Resistance, was accompanied by a call for all like-minded Californians to vote for Bustamante in the Oct. 7 election.

The so called racist organization is Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, more widely known as MEChA, aan organization Bustamante was active in while he was a student at Fresno State College in the 1970s. It was because of this type propaganda about this organization, Bustamante lost the election. Before the election Bustamante did have the lead and it did look like he would have won, other may differ, but according to the Feminist Daily News Wire, on September 10, 2003, Bustamente was ahead by 5 points.

A significant gender gap favors California’s current lieutenant governor over leading Republican challenger Arnold Schwarzenegger in the upcoming recall election in California. Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, a Democrat, is ahead in a recent statewide poll by 5 points, but among women voters he is ahead of Schwarzenegger by 13 points. The recent withdrawal of Republican Peter Ueberroth did not impact the standing of the leading candidates in the California gubernatorial recall election, according to a Field Poll released today. Bustamante is also ahead of Schwarzenegger in most racial/ethnic categories, most significantly leading by 39 points among African-American voters.

But it was at that time in September, – one month before the election, and a political manuever right out of Karl Rove’s playbook – information about Bustamante’s involvment in MECha spread like a California wild fire. It doesn’t help when you have a head of a white supremacy group being quoted saying:

“Since we feel just the opposite [of MEChA], that Southern California must be reserved for the Euro-American people, then at least we’re getting the main issue out on the table,” said Metzger.
…
By endorsing Bustamante and drawing more attention to MEChA’s stated agenda, Metzger said it would force Californians to confront the issue of illegal immigration. “The immigration thing has to be brought to a head, and I feel that the best way to do that is endorse the worst, in the sense of he is a racist and he knows what I’m talking about,” agued Metzger.

Too many coincidences between Metzger and Wilson, but then again, it could be that tin foil is on too tight.

So it is not surprising to find out Metzger is behind this game. And whether or not Metzger and Wilson have been secretly working together playing opposites of each other, that is for history to decided.

Latina Lista said it best regarding Metzger and his vile game:

During these times, this game and other “Border” games that have been circulating on college campuses expose the ugly side of human nature.

I know that the people who promote those games say they are trying to make a point about the state of immigration affairs but the point is lost when people are stripped of their dignity and their value as humans.

Just because someone is illegal or undocumented does not make them less human or deserving to fight for their survival.

Update: A 16-year-old Hispanic boy was beaten, sodomized and left for dead by two neonazis who said they believed he had tried to kiss a 12-year-old girl at a party. But prosecutor will not charge them with a hate-crime. It was first reported it was a white girl, but now the reports have changed that it was a Hispanic girl. Something is fishy. Details of the brutal crime can be read here.