White supremacist stabs interracial couple after seeing them kiss at bar, police say

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**Co'tor Shas**

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/08/19/white-supremacist-stabs-interracial-couple-after-seeing-them-kiss-at-bar-police-say/?utm_term=.4d1c23ac0a1b

Daniel Rowe was apparently enraged at the sight of a black man and a white woman kissing on the streets of Olympia, Wash., Tuesday night. But police say he hid his violent intent behind a stony face until he was close enough to strike.

The attack happened about 8:30 p.m. in the state’s capital city on Fourth Avenue, a classic downtown street busy with people going to a local movie theater or visiting bars and restaurants.

Rowe had recently been released from Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, about 300 miles away. Police say he may have been among the ranks of the state’s homeless, who flock to Olympia for help on their way to Portland or Seattle.

Rowe, 32, walked up to the couple and, without warning, yelled a racial slur and lunged with his knife, police say. The blade grazed the woman and went into the man’s hip, according to a news release from Olympia police.

“The suspect is unknown to the victims and the attack appears to have been unprovoked,” police said in the statement.

After the attack, Rowe ran off as stunned onlookers dialed 911. The 47-year-old male victim, not realizing how badly he was injured, chased Rowe and “tripped him up,” said Lt. Paul Lower, a police department spokesman. Rowe hit his head on the ground and was knocked unconscious.

No one involved had life-threatening injuries, but police said Rowe’s behavior grew stranger as officers tried to wrestle him into the back of a patrol car.

“He tells them, ‘Yeah, I stabbed them. I’m a white supremacist,'” Lower said. “He begins talking about Donald Trump rallies and attacking people at the Black Lives Matter protest.”

According to court documents obtained by the Olympian, Rowe, who was unconscious when police encountered him, had tattoos that read “skinhead,” “white power” and “hooligan.” One tattoo showed the Confederate flag.

Rowe was arrested and booked into the Thurston County Jail on two charges of first-degree assault and possible malicious harassment, which in Washington state is a designation used for hate crimes. The investigation continues.

“This has all the hallmarks of a hate crime,” Deputy Prosecutor Joseph Wheeler said at Rowe’s court hearing Wednesday, according to the Olympian. “This black-and-white couple was simply expressing their love for one another.”

According to the newspaper, Rowe had been imprisoned for a 2008 conviction for second-degree robbery.

Rowe told police he had come to Olympia in response to anti-police graffiti that had been written over the weekend. Police were still investigating who wrote the graffiti, the spokesman said.

As the capital city and seat of the Washington state government, Olympia has seen its share of protests on controversial national and local topics, Lower said.

A year ago, protesters organized several demonstrations after a police officer shot and wounded two black men accused of stealing beer. The Seattle Times described the protest:

It all began Saturday night when 150 protesters, some wearing masks, marched through downtown to counter-protest a planned gathering of white supremacists, an Olympia Police Department spokeswoman said Sunday.

Some vehicle windows were broken and car tires were slashed. A man was stabbed in the arm about 9:30 p.m. Saturday, although that incident was thought to be unrelated to the protest, police spokeswoman Laura Wohl said.

In 2014, the FBI reported 5,479 hate crimes across the United States, a 14.6 percent decrease from 2013.

Lower stressed that Rowe is not connected to any of the city’s protest groups.

In fact, investigators aren’t sure whether he is connected to anyone in the area, Lower said. And officers were scratching their heads at Rowe’s comments about fighting Black Lives Matter during a Donald Trump rally. Neither had events planned in Washington this week.

Glad nobody died, but it's quite terrifying all the same.

**medikant**

A mentally ill out of towner was in Olympia and stabbed someone. Outside of the general racial tones to it the stabbing is honestly a non story. Olympia has a higher than average crime rate for the state. It's a pretty boring city though.

Here is a funny story from April of last year. http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/244687/bandit-robs-subway-using-sack-with-dollar-sign-on-it/

Edit: Fixing link.

**Ouze**

Just to make sure I'm clear, when a guy shot up a bunch of people in Dallas after a BLM rally, that meant that BLM wass inextricably tied to that shooting (rather than being a fringe element) - as such, then Donald Trump is responsible here as well, right? I just want to make sure I'm being consistent.

In any event, I'm glad the victims will be OK here.

**ScootyPuffJunior**

Ouze wrote:
Just to make sure I'm clear, when a guy shot up a bunch of people in Dallas after a BLM rally, that meant that BLM wass inextricably tied to that shooting (rather than being a fringe element) - as such, then Donald Trump is responsible here as well, right? I just want to make sure I'm being consistent.

Ouze, I believe it's already been explained to you that this is a non-story. Like usual, when a white guy does something like this it's because he's "crazy" or "mentally ill," unlike when a black person does it, which is then because of the violent rhetoric of BLM (who, of course, is way more violent than say, the KKK). Just like I'm sure that person in here suburban Northern Virginia that rolled his window down to yell, "Go back to your own country!" at my Nebraskan-born Hawaiian friend and her two elementary aged children was just "mentally ill."

That's how this works, obviously.

In any event, I'm glad the victims will be OK here.

Indeed.

**LordofHats**

ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Ouze, I believe it's already been explained to you that this is a non-story.

Just like the guy with the "I'm gonna shoot some place up one day" name who shot up that Planned Parenthood Clinic?

Sweet. And here I thought I'd have to get all up in arms or something.

**medikant**

ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Ouze, I believe it's already been explained to you that this is a non-story. Like usual, when a white guy does something like this it's because he's "crazy" or "mentally ill," unlike when a black person does it, .

Or you know, they are both crazy, but that doesn't make for as good a straw man.

Here are some recent crazy black guys who stabbed people recently. http://wqad.com/2016/08/18/police-investigate-le-claire-park-incident/

**djones520**

Pretty sure this story was already covered by D-USA in another thread.

**WrentheFaceless**

Man they're everywhere, scary

**ScootyPuffJunior**

medikant wrote:
Or you know, they are both crazy, but that doesn't make for as good a straw man.

Unsurprisingly, I believe you missed the point.

Here are some recent crazy black guys who stabbed people recently. http://wqad.com/2016/08/18/police-investigate-le-claire-park-incident/

Yeah, I really don't care.

**d-usa**

Mental illness, the whitest of privileges.

**Co'tor Shas**

Here I thought this "non-story" was indicative of how the extreme racist rhetoric that gets thrown around can cause people to do horrible things. Glad we cleared that up.

**trexmeyer**

d-usa wrote:
Mental illness, the whitest of privileges.

Please explain why the Mental Health Court in Bexar County is basically all minorities then. Even factoring in the discrepancy in jail populations, that is significant lack of white people.

I don't think I've seen another white person there.

Also, aren't the vast majority of violent white offenders that successfully plead insanity from middle+ class backgrounds?

Just my theory:

Violent criminals from an impoverished background are more likely to be affliated with gangs and commit gang related offenses
Violent criminals from middle class or upper families have no reason to be associated with gangs nor commit crimes of necessity...as such those who do so are more likely to be mentally ill

That's just based on my experience being around various populations in hospitals, rehab, and now probation. It could be completely inaccurate, or just true for Texas. I have no idea. Just an idea.

**LordofHats**

That was sarcasm Trex.

**trexmeyer**

LordofHats wrote:
That was sarcasm Trex.

Until he says so, I remain skeptical.

**Peregrine**

trexmeyer wrote:
d-usa wrote:
Mental illness, the whitest of privileges.

Please explain why the Mental Health Court in Bexar County is basically all minorities then. Even factoring in the discrepancy in jail populations, that is significant lack of white people.

I don't think I've seen another white person there.

Also, aren't the vast majority of violent white offenders that successfully plead insanity from middle+ class backgrounds?

Just my theory:

Violent criminals from an impoverished background are more likely to be affliated with gangs and commit gang related offenses
Violent criminals from middle class or upper families have no reason to be associated with gangs nor commit crimes of necessity...as such those who do so are more likely to be mentally ill

That's just based on my experience being around various populations in hospitals, rehab, and now probation. It could be completely inaccurate, or just true for Texas. I have no idea. Just an idea.

The issue is not that mental illness is supposedly a white-only thing, it's how violent crimes are treated in the media. If a (non-white) Muslim kills some people he hates it's an act of terrorism, we need to ban immigration, look at how they're all violent barbarians who need to find Jesus, etc. If a black person kills some cops it's all BLM's fault for their violent ideology, why are black people inherently violent, etc. If a white guy kills some people he hates we do everything we can to avoid calling it "terrorism". It's always dismissed as "mental illness", some kind of isolated incident that couldn't possibly have any connection to ideology. Just look at how this thread didn't even make it past the first comment before someone jumped in to excuse it as "he was mentally ill" as if the whole "white supremacist tried to kill someone they hate" part is just a bit of trivia. Change the race of the attempted murderer and I doubt you'd hear many people talking about it as "just mental illness".

**AegisGrimm**

White Supremacy isn't as much a mental illness as it is a mental deficiency.

The are easily one of the worst (if not the worst) of the groups active in the US, simply because we give them so many breaks to push their rhetoric - "Oh, it's just free speech", etc.

They are all giant morons who deserve their own forced-occupancy leper colony offshore somewhere.

Just like I'm sure that person in here suburban Northern Virginia that rolled his window down to yell, "Go back to your own country!" at my Nebraskan-born Hawaiian friend and her two elementary aged children was just "mentally ill."

Oh, I get that. I sometime wonder how many times my Polynesian-White buddy with a poli-sci doctorate gets called a "stupid Muslim immigrant" by some white hick. I'm soometimes happy I grew up spending time with my mixed race cousins in a neighborhood where I was the minority as the "suspicious" white kid by the black grandmas.

**Kilkrazy**

This guy seems to be a mentally ill person with a racist complex that has been aggravated by the bigoted rhetoric of the Trump campaign.

Whilst Trump has not actively called for white people to attack non-white people, the success of his campaign of blaming stuff on non-white has helped to create an atmosphere in the USA that gives a sort of licence to racist whites to become more active.

The same thing happened with the Brexit vote, based largely on anti-immigration. The vote for Leave seemed to validate racist feelings by making them seem to have a wide social acceptability, and this led to a sudden outburst of hate crimes.

Godwin.

**Ahtman**

I wish I could remember where I read it but there was an intellectual conservative who, when writing about the Trump phenomena within Republican ranks, wrote an article that said something along the lines of "we always assumed that the base was philosophically with us (conservatism) but it turns out that it is largely White Nationalists."

**AlmightyWalrus**

Ahtman wrote:
I wish I could remember where I read it but there was an intellectual conservative who, when writing about the Trump phenomena within Republican ranks, wrote an article that said something along the lines of "we always assumed that the base was philosophically with us (conservatism) but it turns out that it is largely White Nationalists."

That was somewhere on Dakka, might have been in the US politics thread. I remember reading it too.

**Prestor Jon**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Ahtman wrote:
I wish I could remember where I read it but there was an intellectual conservative who, when writing about the Trump phenomena within Republican ranks, wrote an article that said something along the lines of "we always assumed that the base was philosophically with us (conservatism) but it turns out that it is largely White Nationalists."

That was somewhere on Dakka, might have been in the US politics thread. I remember reading it too.

Sebster posted it in the US politics thread

sebster wrote:
r_squared wrote:
You know, I'm beginning to wonder if the whole Trump Clinton Democrat conspiracy doesn't actually have some legs.

There's two possibilities. The first is that the Republican base picked an incompetent, bigoted liar and somewhere around 80 to 90% of Republican voters will vote for him in November, knowing full well that he's an incompetent, bigoted liar.

The second possibility is that Democrats cunningly tricked the Republican base in to nominating Donald Trump by having Trump say a lot of stupid, bigoted lies which voters then supported. And now that Trump is desperately saying more and more stupid, bigoted lies to try and throw the election, and yet 80 to 90% of Republican voters are still voting for him.

Either way it doesn't really say many positive things about the bulk of Republican supporters.

Avik Roy has been one of the leading intellectuals in conservative US politics for a long time now, and he sums up the state of the party very nicely - “We’ve had this view that the voters were with us on conservatism — philosophical, economic conservatism. In reality, the gravitational center of the Republican Party is white nationalism.”
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12256510/republican-party-trump-avik-roy

It really shouldn't be surprising to anyone this was the predictable outcome of the Southern Strategy employed decades ago that successfully transformed Dixiecrats into Repixiecans. The Republicans have turned the Deep South into their power base so things like confederate flags at Trump rallies and white nationalists/supremacists supporting Trump's brand of nationalism and populism should be expected.

**godardc**

Are you serious ? Everytime a white do something bad, it is because he is an horrible monster, a racist from the far right etc..
But everytime a black or an arabian people do the same, he is presented as having a "psychatric history"...
At least in France.
You know, white people "colonized" the world, they are the bad guys etc...
White privilege my ass.

**BrotherGecko**

godardc wrote:
Are you serious ? Everytime a white do something bad, it is because he is an horrible monster, a racist from the far right etc..
But everytime a black or an arabian people do the same, he is presented as having a "psychatric history"...
At least in France.
You know, white people "colonized" the world*, they are the bad guys etc...
White privilege my ass.**

Here is where your rant not only went wrong but then immediately betrayed what ever point you were trying to make. The US isn't France and doesn't have French problems. Nothing about France applies to the OP.

* they sure did and it sure was bad and they still attempt it today.
**the gold star statement of privilege.

**d-usa**

I based my statement on the sample size of "people posting on Dakka".

**Shadow Captain Edithae**

This ridiculous "violent rhetoric vs mental illness" debate is a false dichotomy, whether its BLM, White Supremacists or Islam.

They aren't mutually exclusive. Both of them are or can be factors at the same time. Both are problems that must be addressed, instead of simply dismissing one problem by citing the other. After all, mentally ill people are vulnerable and easily influenced by rhetoric. The mental illness is what makes them dangerous and prone to lashing it out, but its the violent rhetoric that pushes them to a particular course of action. Somebody who's mentally ill might lash out and punch someone when under stress, but if they're exposed to and manipulated by extremist rhetoric like the extreme wings of BLM and Islam, or White Supremacy, then that person becomes more likely to act with intent to kill.

Mental illness does not negate extremist views.

**trexmeyer**

Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
This ridiculous "violent rhetoric vs mental illness" debate is a false dichotomy, whether its BLM, White Supremacists or Islam.

They aren't mutually exclusive. Both of them are or can be factors at the same time. Both are problems that must be addressed, instead of simply dismissing one problem by citing the other. After all, mentally ill people are vulnerable and easily influenced by rhetoric.

Hey! You lumped all mental and emotional illnesses together into a neat little box that is apparently easily influenced by rhetoric. Damn...I guess I need to be careful, if I listen to the wrong person their rhetoric could sway me towards violence! No one is safe!

**BobtheInquisitor**

Kilkrazy wrote:
This guy seems to be a mentally ill person with a racist complex that has been aggravated by the bigoted rhetoric of the Trump campaign.

Whilst Trump has not actively called for white people to attack non-white people, the success of his campaign of blaming stuff on non-white has helped to create an atmosphere in the USA that gives a sort of licence to racist whites to become more active.

The same thing happened with the Brexit vote, based largely on anti-immigration. The vote for Leave seemed to validate racist feelings by making them seem to have a wide social acceptability, and this led to a sudden outburst of hate crimes.

Godwin.

I haven't seen it on Dakka, but there have been a couple attacks on Muslims recently that were clearly inspired by the fearmongering. Two Muslims were killed in New York and a Christian of Lebanese descent shot for being a "dirty Muslim." I don't know if this is an uptick in such types of hate crimes or an uptick in reporting.

**Shadow Captain Edithae**

trexmeyer wrote:
Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
This ridiculous "violent rhetoric vs mental illness" debate is a false dichotomy, whether its BLM, White Supremacists or Islam.

They aren't mutually exclusive. Both of them are or can be factors at the same time. Both are problems that must be addressed, instead of simply dismissing one problem by citing the other. After all, mentally ill people are vulnerable and easily influenced by rhetoric.

Hey! You lumped all mental and emotional illnesses together into a neat little box that is apparently easily influenced by rhetoric. Damn...I guess I need to be careful, if I listen to the wrong person their rhetoric could sway me towards violence! No one is safe!

Oh ffs. Of course not all mental illnesses are the same. Did I really need to spell that out? I was generalizing for the sake of brevity, with an implicit reference to the more extreme illnesses like schizophrenia etc. You're being pedantic for the sake of petty point scoring and ignored my point entirely.

**Vaktathi**

And I just spent a wonderful afternoon on 4th Street in Olympia a few days ago. Sad that stupid gak had to happen :/

**trexmeyer**

Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Oh ffs. Of course not all mental illnesses are the same. Did I really need to spell that out? I was generalizing for the sake of brevity, with an implicit reference to the more extreme illnesses like schizophrenia etc. You're being pedantic for the sake of petty point scoring and ignored my point entirely.

At no point in your post did you make such a reference.

Just to highlight how absurd it is to group schizophrenia in with everything else:

Schizophrenia - 200,000 cases per year - the only potentially dangerous ones are severe cases that make up a minority. Even then, such examples are often linked to drug usage, would begs the question of whether or not it was the illness or the drugs that led to an act of violence.

Bipolar Disorder - 3,000,000 cases per year - This includes both type 1 and type 2. Individual symptoms can vary wildly in terms of severity in both types.

Borderline Personality Disorder - 3,000,000 cases per year - Contrary to popular belief these people are not actual physical threats (though they can cause emotional damage to others) and are vastly more likely to injure themselves than others.

Antisocial Personality Disorder aka Sociopathy - 200,000 cases per year - If there is any disorder that I am aware of that would actually be known for injuring others it would be this one.

ICD-10 Diagnosis criteria

It is characterized by at least 3 of the following:

Callous unconcern for the feelings of others;

Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules, and obligations;

Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them;

Very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence;

Incapacity to experience guilt or to profit from experience, particularly punishment;

Marked readiness to blame others or to offer plausible rationalizations for the behavior that has brought the person into conflict with society.

And there are a myriad of other disorders and such we could get into. Yes, someone can multiple illnesses at once. Things like a combination of say Borderline, Anxiety, Depression seem fairly common. I don't know of an instance where someone has Borderline-Bipolar, but it may be possible.

The point is:

1) A minority of mentally ill people are actually prone to increased violence against others.
2) There is no evidence that schizophrenics demonstrate increased violence against others. This is a media myth. The fact you listed schizophrenia (especially as opposed to Antisocial) shows your knowledge of mental illness is most likely limited to what you've seen on TV.
3) The sheer variety in the way mental/emotional illnesses/disorders are manifested or developed is disparate to the point lumping them into a single category is completely nonsensical.

**Shadow Captain Edithae**

You're still ignoring my point.

Also.

At no point in your post did you make such a reference.

I was generalizing for the sake of brevity, with an implicit reference

I suggest you go look up the definition of this word. ^

I was making a general point about how mental illness and political/religious extremism are not mutually exclusive and do not cancel each other out (which people were arguing over early in the thread)...whereas you've completely ignored that point and chose to take offence and pedantically nit pick my choice of words. I shouldn't have to include a disclaimer listing only the exact mental illnesses that lead to violence when I'm only making a general point about how its not mutually exclusive with some other factor.

I'm not going to waste my time arguing with you, thats all I'm going to say on the matter. If you want to continue bickering about the minutiae of my original post and ignoring my actual point, its gonna be a one way conversation.