Calling the Atlanta Shootings a Hate Crime Isn’t Nearly Enough

In 2002, the brutal beating of a junior by his classmate at Morehouse College, in Atlanta, made national headlines. The case marked Georgia’s prosecutorial debut of its hate-crime statute, on the grounds that the perpetrator, 19-year-old Aaron Price, had accused 20-year-old Gregory Love of making a sexual advance toward him in a shower stall, and spouted homophobic rants as he retrieved the baseball bat he used to bludgeon Love. The hate-crime statute could have added five years to Price’s 10-year sentence for aggravated battery and assault. But the court’s decision not to convict on the additional criminal code came down to the defendant’s word against his victim’s: Price insisted that he feared for his safety and denied having used such slurs.