Anchorage paintball attacks
Encyclopedia
The Anchorage paintball attacks of January 14, 2001 were a series of pre-meditated and racially motivated drive-by shooting
Drive-by shooting
A drive-by shooting is a form of hit-and-run tactic, a personal attack carried out by an individual or individuals from a moving or momentarily stopped vehicle without use of headlights to avoid being noticed. It often results in bystanders being shot instead of, or as well as, the intended target...

s targeted at Alaska Natives
Alaska Natives
Alaska Natives are the indigenous peoples of Alaska. They include: Aleut, Inuit, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Eyak, and a number of Northern Athabaskan cultures.-History:In 1912 the Alaska Native Brotherhood was founded...

 in downtown Anchorage that night. These attacks, described by the news media and by Alaska legislators as hate crime
Hate crime
In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...

s, and by Anchorage mayor George Wuerch
George Wuerch
George P. Wuerch is an American politician and a member of the Republican Party. He served as mayor of Anchorage, Alaska from 2000 to 2003....

 as "racism at its worst", sparked a broader debate about race relations in Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

.

Incident

On Sunday, January 14, 2001 the three individuals—19-year-old Charles Deane Wiseman and two juveniles whose names were not released, all of whom were residents of Eagle River
Eagle River, Alaska
Eagle River is a community within the Municipality of Anchorage situated on the Eagle River for which it is named, between Fort Richardson and Chugach State Park in the Chugach Mountains. Its ZIP code is 99577...

—entered Anchorage in a 1999 Subaru Impreza
Subaru Impreza
Introduced in November 1993, the Impreza was offered in either front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive versions and as a four-door sedan/saloon or five-door station wagon/estate. According to a Motor Trend article written March 1992 on page 26, the name of Subaru's new compact was, initially, to be...

 registered to Wiseman's parents. With them they carried a video camera
Video camera
A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in...

, a paintball gun, and paintball ammunition which allegedly had been frozen solid.

According to statements captured by their video-recording during the 15 miles (24.1 km) drive prior to the shootings, the three boys had traveled into Anchorage for the specific purpose of locating "Eskimo
Eskimo
Eskimos or Inuit–Yupik peoples are indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the circumpolar region from eastern Siberia , across Alaska , Canada, and Greenland....

" pedestrians, particularly those whom they believed to be walking about drunk
Public intoxication
Public intoxication, also known as "drunk and disorderly", is a summary offense in many countries rated to public cases or displays of drunkenness...

, and paintballing them. One of the unnamed minors drove the car and fired only one paintball. Wiseman himself filmed the escapade from the back seat. The third perpetrator, also 17, rode in the front passenger seat and fired all the remaining paintball shots.

In one part of the videotape the assailants are seen posing as tourists from California and interrogating a 52-year-old Nome
Nome, Alaska
Nome is a city in the Nome Census Area in the Unorganized Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska, located on the southern Seward Peninsula coast on Norton Sound of the Bering Sea. According to the 2010 Census, the city population was 3,598. Nome was incorporated on April 9, 1901, and was once the...

 man, to wit, asking whether he was drunk. Satisfied by the pedestrian's frank admission that he was "always drunk" and had struggled with alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

 since age 14, they promptly shot him in the face. In another segment they are seen sparing a pedestrian whom they had intended to shoot, embarrassed upon realizing that their would-be victim was in fact Chinese
Chinese people
The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....

.

Several victims and witnesses contacted the Anchorage police to report the shootings. One man informed a patrol officer that he had been shot, but was subsequently arrested for disorderly conduct
Disorderly conduct
Disorderly conduct is a criminal charge in most jurisdictions in the United States. Typically, disorderly conduct makes it a crime to be drunk in public, to "disturb the peace", or to loiter in certain areas. Many types of unruly conduct may fit the definition of disorderly conduct, as such...

 due his intoxicated state and lack of obvious wounds.

Several of the victims correctly reported the license plate number of the attackers, leading police back to Eagle River, where they confiscated the paintball gun and the videotape. Despite knowing the identity of all three suspects, and having watched the videotape, they made no arrests until March 20, citing lack of evidence. Wiseman was charged with seven counts of misdemeanor assault for his alleged role of videotaping the attacks and luring victims closer to the car. Prosecutors declined to indicate whether charges would be filed against the shooter and the driver, but Chugiak High School
Chugiak High School
Chugiak High School is a public high school located in Chugiak, Alaska. Chugiak's mascot is the Mustang and the school colors are blue, black, and white...

 did suspend both juveniles.

Reaction of Alaska legislature

Thursday, March 22, the Alaska House of Representatives
Alaska House of Representatives
The Alaska House of Representatives is the lower house in the Alaska Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Alaska. The House is composed of 40 members, each of whom represents a district of about 15,673 people . Members serve two-year terms without term limits...

 announced that they had unanimously passed Joint Resolution No. 22 which condemned the incident as a hate crime
Hate crime
In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...

, urged "swift prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators", and asked the Alaska Commission on Civil Rights to investigate the attacks. The resolution was amended by the Alaska Senate
Alaska Senate
The Alaska Senate is the upper house in the Alaska Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Alaska. The Senate consists of twenty members, each of whom represents an equal amount of districts with populations of about 31,347 people . Senators serve four-year terms, without term...

—to only condemn "unlawful" discrimination—by a vote of 16–2. The Alaska congress also began drafting Alaska's first "misdemeanor hate crime" legislation, making otherwise similar offenses more serious if they are motivated by personal bias.

Aftermath

Charles Deane Wiseman changed his plea to that of no contest
Nolo contendere
is a legal term that comes from the Latin for "I do not wish to contend." It is also referred to as a plea of no contest.In criminal trials, and in some common law jurisdictions, it is a plea where the defendant neither admits nor disputes a charge, serving as an alternative to a pleading of...

 on July 23, 2001 and was sentenced August 31 to six months imprisonment, plus a $6,000 fine, plus 300 hours community service. Wiseman was being held in solitary confinement, reportedly to protect him from other inmates, but forty days into Wiseman's sentence his attorney Robert Herz argued that this was too severe for a first-time offender, and requested that the remainder of Wiseman's sentence be downgraded to an electronically monitored house arrest (ankle bracelet). This was denied. It remains unclear what penalties the two juveniles may have received.

The incident inspired governor Tony Knowles
Tony Knowles (politician)
Anthony Carroll Knowles is an American Democratic politician and businessman who served as the seventh Governor of Alaska from December 1994 to December 2002. Barred from seeking a third consecutive term as governor in 2002, he ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2004 and again for governor in...

 to appoint a 14-member "Commission on Tolerance" which reported back to him with over 100 recommendations for improving race relations in the state of Alaska. This list included more new hate crime laws, increased funding for schools in rural villages, and even adding new verses to "Alaska's Flag
Alaska's Flag
"Alaska's Flag" is the state song of Alaska. Unique among state songs, its lyrics explain the symbolism of the Alaskan flag. The lyrics are:Eight stars of gold on a field of blue — Alaska's flag...

" (the state song) to recognize contributions of aboriginal natives.

External links

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