Homeless get hate-crime protection in Md.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland granted a new safeguard to its most downtrodden residents Thursday, becoming the first state in the nation to extend hate-crime protection to homeless people.

Lawmakers point to cases such as the one in south Baltimore in 2001, where a group of young men embarked on what a judge later described as a “systematic cleansing” of homeless men in their neighborhood. Three victims were beaten to death and others were forced to relocate. Three men went to prison for the crime one of them dubbed “bum stomping.”

Such attacks on the homeless are becoming more common, advocates say. More than 800 homeless people have been violently attacked in the U.S. in the past decade, and at least 217 have died, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. In 2007, there were 160 attacks, the most in a year since the group began collecting such data in 1999.

The bill signed by Gov. Martin O’Malley adds homelessness to the protected categories under Maryland’s hate-crimes law, which allows prosecutors to seek tougher penalties for those who target people because of race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation.

California, Texas and Ohio are considering similar bills, and legislation has been introduced in Congress.

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino, said the law extends unprecedented protection to an increasingly vulnerable population.

“The homeless are arguably the most victimized class, criminally, of anyone out there,” Levin said.

Most attacks are by teen boys or young men, according to research by the coalition and Levin’s group. Technology has accelerated the trend, with “bum fighting” videos widely available on YouTube and other sites.

Homeless people are more likely to be killed in bias-related attacks than victims from all existing hate-crime categories combined, Levin said.