MN Sen. Committee Votes To Stiffen Bias Crime Penalties
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A Minnesota Senate Committee voted Friday to place much tougher penalties on crimes involving bias.
The vote came after a Minnesota woman was assaulted in a Coon Rapids restaurant because she was speaking a different language.
The attack on Asma Jama at a suburban Applebee's was so serious it sent her to the hospital. Police say Jodie Marie Bruchard-Risch, of Ramsey, smashed her in the head with a beer mug.
Jama said it's because she wasn't speaking English.
"We were speaking Swahili amongst ourselves," Jama told a Minnesota Senate Committee, "and she said, 'If you live in America, you have to speak English.'"
Jama, who was born in Somalia, came to the U.S. via Kenya in 2000.
She was at the restaurant with her family -- including four young nieces -- when she was repeatedly confronted by the woman, who told her to go back where she came from.
"Apparently when I turned around to look at her, she had a beer mug in her hand and she through it across my face," she said. "And then I had 17 stitches on my face."
There's been an outpouring of support for Jama since then, and she was a guest at Gov. Mark Dayton's State of the State address.
Now, Minnesota Sen. Ron Latz, a Democrat who is Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is working to enhance penalties for felony level bias crimes.
"It's an offense not only against the individual victim, of the physical assault, it's an offense against all of the community," Latz said.
Latz's bill adds five years to a felony bias crime, and 10 years if the victim is a child.
Even so, some legislators say bias laws are unfair, giving special treatment to some, but not everyone.
"If a gang of guys came after me and they did it because I was a white guy, should they get a higher penalty?" asked Minnesota Sen. Dan Hall (R-Burnsville).