Is attacking a mentally disabled person when you know they are disabled considered a hate crime?
If they attack you *despite* your disability (i.e. they know you have it but they don’t care, they beat you up anyway) then it’s simple assault, which is still completely and totally illegal and could get him sent to jail. Any assault on someone can get you jail time and is wrong. If they attack you *because* of your disability (i.e. he knows you have it and so he attacks you because of it) then it could be classified as a hate crime. For example… – If two guys got into a disagreement on the street over something and one could walk and the other was in a wheelchair, they traded words, and then the guy who could walk punched the wheelchair guy in the face, that would NOT be a hate crime because the reason they got in the fight was a disagreement. He’d still get sent to jail, but it’s not a hate crime. – If two guys crossed eachother on the street and the one who could walk decided that he was going to start beating on the guy in the wheelchair simply because he was in a wheelchair, th
