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4 tweets,
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1. The police investigation will get to the bottom of the Jessie Smollett attack. In me meantime, can we please not use this incident as a referendum on hate crimes? Although, as a career prosecutor I can attest to the fact that there are occasionally false assault reports . . .
2. My fear is that if it turns out this is a publicity stunt (though I’m not saying that is the case), people will use it as a vehicle to disbelieve victims who are attacked daily in the US for the color of their skin, their ethnicity or their sexual orientation/identification...
3. Please consider this - if a person falsely claims to have cancer to win sympathy, attention or donations (think a sham GoFundMe account), we don’t use one bad apple as an excuse to disbelieve the millions of folks who are battling cancer . . .
4. If the Jessie Smollett incident IS found to be an orchestration, that will do nothing to diminish the fact that hate crimes inspired by racism, homophobia and bigotry are very real. Assaults damage victims. Hate crimes damage victims AND our American ideals. #VictimsMatter
