1. Your Extremist #FlashbackFriday--and it is one that will make you angry and sad. On this day in 2006, a jury in Houston convicted white supremacist David Henry Tuck of aggravated sexual assault for an attack he and Keith Robert Turner launched on a Hispanic teen. Tuck shouted
2. "white power" and racial epithets as he and Turner brutally beat, kicked and stomped the high school student and used a patio umbrella pole to sodomize him. They then poured bleach on him, burned him with cigarettes and tried to carve a swastika into his chest. They attacked
3. him for *five hours*. Not long after Tuck's conviction, Turner was convicted as well. Tuck received a life sentence; Turner a 90-year sentence. They have to serve 30 years before being eligible for parole.
4. The victim, David Ritcheson, 16 at the time of the attack, was so brave. He survived the attack--barely, receiving extensive injuries that required more than a dozen surgeries. 
5. But David didn't want to be a victim and he wanted to go public, to take a stand against hate. The young man worked with the Anti-Defamation League, which brought him to congress so he could tell his story in the hope of strengthening hate crimes laws.
6.
7. Tragically, the trauma proved too much. He suffered from PTSD. He had nightmares. In July 2007, David took his own life. In a real sense, hate stole his life--his promise, his dreams, his future. I can't think about Ritcheson without tears. The casualties of hate are real.
