Racial attacks in revenge of the Trayvon Martin Case

Might this be the time for Obama to calm racial anger?  Has the media hyping of the case and misinformation endangered lives?

Gainesville, Florida:

The reported beating in Gainesville of a white man by a group of black men who yelled “Trayvon” before the attack last week resonated on the Internet on Tuesday, though police locally were still hoping for someone to come forward with information about the assailants. . . .
Gainesville police said they consider the beating Saturday to be “racially motivated” and apparently done in retaliation for Martin’s death.
The 27-year-old victim, who was described by police as “visibly intoxicated,” said he was walking home on Southwest 23rd Terrace after a night out at midtown bars when, at about 2:45 a.m., a vehicle pulled up to the intersection with Southwest 32nd Place.
According to a police report, the victim said “five to eight black males, unknown age or description, jumped out of the vehicle at the intersection and told (him) he was walking too slow and then started yelling, ‘Trayvon.’ ”
The victim said he was punched in the face and fell to the ground, where he was “struck numerous times in the face.” He estimated the attack lasted five minutes.
The men got back in the vehicle and headed north on 23rd Terrace, which runs between Archer and Williston roads. . . .

Oak Park, Illinois:

A teen charged with a hate crime in Oak Park says he attacked and beat up his victim because he was angry about the Trayvon Martin case.
Alton Hayes III, 18, of Oak Park, is charged with attempted robbery and aggravated battery. He is also charged with a hate crime.
Hayes and his 15-year-old alleged accomplice are African-American, while the victim is white.
The Oak Park-River Forest Patch reportsaround 1 a.m. April 17, Hayes and the Chicago boy walked up behind the 19-year-old victim in the 1600 block of North Kenilworth Avenue in Oak Park.
Police say Hayes and his accomplice and pinned the victim’s arms to his side, police said. Hayes then picked up a large tree branch, pointed it at the man and said, “Empty your pockets, white boy,” police said.
The two allegedly rifled through the victim’s pockets, then threw him to the ground and punched him “numerous times” in the head and back before running away, police said. After being arrested, Hayes told police he was upset by the Trayvon Martin case, and said he beat the victim up because he was white, Cook County State’s Attorney’s office spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said. . . .

Mobile, Alabama:

A white Alabama man’s brutal beating by a mob is not being investigated as a hate crime, despite eyewitness reports that one of the assailants referenced Trayvon Martin during the attack.
The attack on Matthew Owens, 40, is currently being investigated as an assault, said Ashley Rains, public information officer for the Mobile Police Department, to Fox News.
Owens, of Mobile, remains in serious condition after cops say about 20 African-American adults showed up at his home Saturday and beat him with chairs, pipes, brass knuckles and paint cans.
Owens’ sister and another witness say that as the group left, one assailant said: “Now that’s justice for Trayvon” following the assault. . . .
Furious neighbors say that no matter what was said, the attack had nothing to do with Martin. . . .

Toledo, Ohio:

A 78-year-old Ohio man says he was a victim of a hate crime when he was severely beaten by group of youths -- who allegedly said "this is for Trayvon," referring to the unarmed black Florida teen killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer.
The man, Dallas Watts of East Toledo, told police he was walking home Saturday afternoon when he was confronted by six youths, both white and black, ages 11 to 17, FoxToledo.com reports. One of the youths allegedly said "take him down."
Watts said he told the youths, "Why me? Remember Trayvon." He told FoxToledo.com that he meant it in a "peaceful way," since he had nothing to do with the Florida killing. But police suggest the youths may have misinterpreted Watts' words as threatening.
"[Get] that white [man]. This is for Trayvon ... Trayvon lives, white [man]. Kill that white [man]," the boys are quoted as saying in a police report cited by the Toledo Blade. . . . 

Grand Rapids:

. . .  on the weekend of March 24th and March 25th at least seven white people were brutally beaten by mobs of blacks in Grand Rapids, MI. Five of the victims filed police reports. At least two other victims exist, and there are probably others. The local media has refused to report the cruel attacks and the authorities are resisting any serious charges.
I talked with one of the victims, 37 year old Jacob Palasek. He is a full time student and does computer work part time. He was attacked by a wolf pack of thugs on the corner of Sixth Street and Broadway in Grand Rapids, Michigan just after midnight on March 25th. The location is a mix of stores, offices, and residential neighborhoods. Jacob lives near where he was attacked.
As he was walking to his apartment, he saw three black males loitering. One was on a bicycle. The suspect on the bicycle rode up beside him. Suddenly the thug smashed him in the side of the head with a chain. He was hit two or three more times in the head with the chain before he broke loose and ran to the nearest home. He knocked on the door, hoping the owner would call the police.
All three of the black males then attacked him on the porch. They yelled “this is what you deserve you white piece of shit.” Jacob was hit in the head with the large chain more times. Jacob broke free again and hid behind a dumpster. The attackers initially chased him, but broke their pursuit and walked away. There were some cars driving by and the thugs may have thought a driver was calling 911.
All seven known victims were attacked within about six blocks of where Jacob was attacked. The victims were in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Some of the victims were attacked during the day in broad daylight. . . . 

Norfolk, VA?:

Two weeks have passed since reporters Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami - friends to me and many others at the newspaper - were attacked on a Saturday night as they drove home from a show at the Attucks Theatre. They had stopped at a red light, in a crowd of at least 100 young people walking on the sidewalk. Rostami locked her car door. Someone threw a rock at her window. Forster got out to confront the rock-thrower, and that's when the beating began.
Neither suffered grave injuries, but both were out of work for a week. Forster's torso ached from blows to his ribs, and he retained a thumb-sized bump on his head. Rostami fears to be alone in her home. Forster wishes he'd stayed in the car. . . .
Forster and Rostami's story has not, until today, appeared in this paper. The responding officer coded the incident as a simple assault, despite their assertions that at least 30 people had participated in the attack. A reporter making routine checks of police reports would see "simple assault" and, if the names were unfamiliar, would be unlikely to write about it. In this case, editors hesitated to assign a story about their own employees. Would it seem like the paper treated its employees differently from other crime victims? . . .
Forster and Rostami wondered if the officer who answered their call treated all crime victims the same way. When Rostami, who admits she was hysterical, tried to describe what had happened, she says the officer told her to shut up and get in the car. Both said the officer did not record any names of witnesses who stopped to help. Rostami said the officer told them the attackers were "probably juveniles anyway. What are we going to do? Find their parents and tell them?"
The officer pointed to public housing in the area and said large groups of teenagers look for trouble on the weekends. "It's what they do," he told Forster.
Could that be true? . . .
Police spokesman Chris Amos said officers often respond to reports of crowds fighting; sirens are usually enough to disperse the group. On that night, he said, a report of gunfire in a nearby neighborhood prompted the officer to decide getting Forster and Rostami off the street quickly made more sense than remaining at the intersection. The officer gave them his card and told them to call later to file a report.
The next day, Forster searched Twitter for mention of the attack.
One post chilled him.
"I feel for the white man who got beat up at the light," wrote one person.
"I don't," wrote another, indicating laughter. "(do it for trayvon martin)" . . .
Forster and Rostami, both white, suffered a beating at the hands of a crowd of black teenagers. . . .

Now it comes out that in this Norfolk, Va. case the police originally listed this as a hate crime.

More info is available here.

Sanford, Florida? (Speculative)

A witness told deputies he heard someone screaming for help and saw two men pull the victim from his vehicle. He said he watched as one man held the victim and the other beat him in the head with a hammer.
After they dragged the victim into the woods, the men drove away in his sport utility vehicle, which was later found abandoned about a half-mile away on Garbo Jack Lane.
Investigators got a break in the case Thursday, when a tip to Crimeline named Bender and gave the street name of the second suspect.
On Friday, investigators learned Israel's fingerprints had been found both inside and outside of the victim's vehicle.
The witness was shown photo lineups and picked out Bender and Israel as the men he saw beating the victim. He said Bender was the man wielding the hammer. . . .

The two attackers are black and the victim is white, but that isn't what is interesting here.  I haven't been able to confirm the following claim here in a solid news source, but if true, this would be important:

Shortly following Rev Al Sharpton’s Anti-George Zimmerman rally in Sanford, FL, two Sanford teens,   enraged by hate and racism at the rally, decided to burglarize, terrorize and beat a white man to near death with a hammer. . . .

Other stories are available here.