Racist rampage leaves man brain-dead

braindeadIt came out of nowhere.

A black man allegedly went on a rampage in Union Square on Wednesday afternoon and left a complete stranger brain-dead in the process.

Police said that the attack may have been a hate crime.

Friends of Jeffrey Babbitt, 62, were shocked to hear about the random act of violence that left the gentle, retired train conductor in a coma, CBS 2′s Dave Carlin reported on Friday.

“I don’t believe that. I don’t know why that happened. He is very nice,” Igor Sapozhnikov said.

Babbitt was minding his own business as he walked through the crowd near the chess boards in Union Square when a man made a hateful announcement and began his rampage, witnesses said.

“He said ‘the next white person who walks by I’m going to [expletive],’” one woman said. “His fist went in and the man’s head bobbed and he hit the ground and you could hear his skull hitting the ground.”

The man continued his rampage before demanding to see police officers.

“He stood there and hit two more people and asked for the police to come,” Michael Benson said.

Stunned witnesses counted a total of three people attacked. The suspect, Lashawn Marten, 31, remained at the scene until police arrived.

Babbitt was on the ground with blood flowing from his head. Nearby were two other victims icing their faces.

Because of Marten’s alleged comments about targeting white people the incident could result in hate crime charges in addition to felony assault charges, according to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

“Obviously our Hate Crimes Task Force is involved in aspects of that case,” Kelly said.

Witnesses said they were amazed at the brazen, public nature of the assault.

“This is such a crowded area. You’d expect it in a back alley, but there are so many people here. That’s the strange part,” Garrett Browning said.

Babbitt was taken to Bellevue Hospital. Family and friends said that he is in a coma and has been declared brain-dead.

His 92-year-old mother, Hedda, was by his side. She shared a Sheepshead Bay apartment with her son. He was her primary caregiver. – CBS New York

Americans consider blacks to be more racist than whites

blackVictimhoodAmericans consider blacks more likely to be racist than whites and Hispanics in the US.

Thirty-seven percent (37%) of American Adults think most black Americans are racist, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just 15% consider most white Americans racist, while 18% say the same of most Hispanic Americans. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

There is a huge ideological difference on this topic. Among conservative Americans, 49% consider most blacks racist, and only 12% see most whites that way. Among liberal voters, 27% see most white Americans as racist, and 21% say the same about black Americans.

From a partisan perspective, 49% of Republicans see most black Americans as racist, along with 36% of unaffiliated adults and 29% of Democrats.

Among black Americans, 31% think most blacks are racist, while 24% consider most whites racist and 15% view most Hispanics that way.

Among white adults, 10% think most white Americans are racist; 38% believe most blacks are racist, and 17% say most Hispanics are racist.

Overall, just 30% of all Americans now rate race relations in the United States as good or excellent. Fourteen percent (14%) describe them as poor. Twenty-nine percent (29%) think race relations are getting better, while 32% believe they are getting worse. Thirty-five percent (35%) feel they are staying about the same.

These figures reflect more pessimism than was found in April when 42% gave race relations positive marks and 39% said race relations were improving.  However, the April number reflected all-time highs while the current numbers are more consistent with the general attitudes of recent years.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on July 1-2, 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently killed a key portion of the Voting Rights Act as unconstitutional and sent a lawsuit challenging the University of Texas’ use of race as a factor in admissions back to the appellate court level for further review. Most Americans believe affirmative action admissions policies discriminate against whites, as the lawsuit argues, and think it’s better for colleges and universities to accept the most qualified students.

This is consistent with public resistance to all special preferences. Only 30% think it’s fair for colleges and universities to give preferences to children of large donors.  Just 38% think it is fair for the children of previous students to have a special advantage in the admissions process.

Following those decisions and a big ruling on same-sex marriage, public approval of the U.S. Supreme Court has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded in more than nine years of polling.

Blacks are slightly more optimistic about the current state of race relations in American than whites and Hispanics are. But 37% of blacks and 38% of Hispanics believe those relations are getting worse, compared to 29% of whites.

Liberals are more confident than conservatives that race relations are getting better.

Forty-five percent (45%) of voters believe the U.S. justice system is fair to most Americans, but just 34% think it is fair to poor Americans. Forty-five percent (45%) consider the justice system fair to black and Hispanic Americans.

Most voters continue to believe the U.S. economy is fair to women, blacks and Hispanics but are now evenly divided when asked if it’s fair to lower-income Americans. However, they still think all four groups are treated better than the middle class. – Rasmussen