Phoenix Police Probe Drive-By Shooting

Woman Killed In What Police Say Might Be A Hate Crime

PHOENIX -- Police need the public's help in finding a man they said killed a woman with a shotgun and then drove off in north Phoenix.

Detectives said this might be a hate crime. The victim, a white woman, was with a black man when the white male suspect asked what he was doing with a white woman, said Detective James Holmes with the Phoenix Police Department.

It all started in a park near 12th Street and Dunlap Avenue.

At about 1:15 a.m. Saturday, the 39-year-old white woman and 48-year-old black man were walking in the park when a white man walked up to them, Holmes said.

That's when police said the suspect questioned why the two were together. The couple ignored the comment and walked away, police said.

The suspect followed them on foot for a little while before the pair lost track of him, Holmes said.

Officers said the man came back in the passenger seat of a white car with a shotgun and fired two shots, one of them hit the woman and killed her. The man was not injured.

"You know the guy is bald, he's got tattoos, he's making a comment about a white woman with a black man," Holmes said. "One could assume it might be a hate crime or racially motivated. I won't come out and say it is, it's something we have to look into."

Police are looking for a man about 5 feet 6 inches tall. They said he weighed around 200 pounds, had a shaved head and multiple tattoos.

He was last seen in a white, four-door car with dark tinted windows.

What would they call it if the shooter was anything other than white? "Gang Related", of course. But aren't all crimes of violence really Hate Crimes? Other than collateral damage killings, where someone other than your target gets killed, don't you have to have some kind of hatred motivating you to pick up something lethal with the intent to use it to criminally kill or injure? I guess the HATE CRIME label sells more papers, evokes more emotion. I admit the shooter as described sounds like your stereotypical White Power Racist, and he may truly be one. But when the black students beat the fucking snot out of some white kid, "they" are hesitant to call it a hate crime.