Oregon man charged with hate crime for beating 70-year-old Indian woman

By Asia Samachar Team | US |

Another day, another hate crime in the United States. But these stories may start to have better endings for the victims.

Earlier this week, an Oregon court charged a 53-year old man with hate crime.

James Lamb was accused of breaking into a motel office on New Yesr’s eve and attacking a 70-year-old immigrant from India who owns the business. He was a guest at the motel.

On Monday (6 Man 2020), the Deschutes County grand jury returned an indictment charging attempted murder and hate crimes in the assault at the Hub Motel in Redmond.

The owner suffered broken bones, remains in the hospital, and is expected to survive.

“The victim of this unprovoked assault provided heroic testimony to the grand jury from her hospital bed. Too many people in Oregon are silenced by intimidation and violence because of how they look, who they love, or to whom they pray,” District Attorney John Hummel said in a statement released on 6 Jan.

Specifically, he statement said the grand jury charged Lamb with: one count of attempted murder in the second degree, two counts of bias crime in the first degree, one count of assault in the second degree, one count of burglary in the second degree, one count of strangulation, one count of menacing, and one count of criminal mischief in the second degree.

The grand jury charged Lamb with bias crimes based on his statements regarding the victim’s country of origin being India and his expressed desire to rid America of people like her.

Charging Lamb with bias charges was possible because of Oregon’s revised “hate crime” law that was passed last year by the Oregon Legislature, the statement added.

Lamb acted alone during this unprovoked assault. Oregon’s revised hate crime law allows a felony hate crime to be charged when a defendant acts alone to harm another because of that person’s race, color, religion, sexual orientation, disability or national origin.

Previously, felony charges were only authorized if two or more people harmed another based on these motivations, the statement noted.