US Indiana Black Man Charged In His Own ‘Attempted Lynching’ Launched a GoFundMe to Raise Funds. Now a Judge Is Blocking His Access to a Public Defender.

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Indiana Black Man Charged In His Own ‘Attempted Lynching’ Launched a GoFundMe to Raise Funds. Now a Judge Is Blocking His Access to a Public Defender.​

Niara Savage
Mon, November 22, 2021

An Indiana judge ruled last week that a Black man criminally charged in connection with a racially motivated July 2020 attack at Lake Monroe, in which he was allegedly the victim, can no longer receive representation from a public defender.

A special prosecutor in August charged 38-year-old Vauhxx Booker with battery resulting in moderate bodily injury, a felony and misdemeanor criminal trespass. Johnson County Superior Court Judge Lance Hamner ruled in favor of the Monroe County Public Defender’s Office’s request to deny Booker a public defender earlier this month.

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Vauhxx Booker, 37, was charged on Friday by a special prosecutor in Monroe Circuit Court with battery resulting in moderate bodily injury, a felony and misdemeanor criminal trespass. Photo: WRTV/ YouTube screenshot.

The July 4, 2020, incident involving Booker and several others was filmed and shared widely on social media. In the video, several people surround Booker, allegedly trying to tie him to a tree, following a verbal altercation near Lake Monroe.

Two men, Sean M. Purdy, and Jerry E. Cox II, were charged in connection with the incident weeks later. An Indiana Department of Natural Resources report later found that Booker should also be charged with battery and trespassing because he allegedly punched Cox and Purdy, and returned to the private property after being escorted away the first time.

Booker, now facing charges in the Monroe Circuit Court, received more than $36,000 in donationsthrough GoFundMe following the publicized altercation. Hamner in October granted Booker representation by way of a public defender after Booker said during a hearing that he was unemployed and had less than $500 in savings.

But the Public Defender’s Office filed a motion earlier this month, suggesting Booker “may not meet the definition of indigency needed for a public defender” because of the money collected in the GoFundMe account.

According to a state-run website, a person must tell the judge he or she cannot afford to hire an attorney, and provide the court with details about his or her financial situation to demonstrate financial need in order to get a public defender in Indiana.

Ashley Cranor, a friend of Booker, started the account in the days after the attack. “The intention of this campaign is to raise funds to allow Vauhxx to address he needs as he recovers,” Cranor wrote. She said Booker would need the money for medical costs, attorney’s fees and counseling to “deal with being assaulted while being black in America.”

Booker provided an update to donors in late October after he was charge.

“Many understand the inherent challenges associated with facing criminal charges, such as losing my job and health insurance. This type of vindictive prosecution should never be allowed to happen to anyone. I won’t allow myself to be bullied or intimidated by a unelected special prosecutor. Your contributions have allowed me to continue living my life and healing.”

On the day of the incident, Booker was at the lake with friends when another group approached and said they were on private property. Booker said he and his friends went on their way but encountered more people from the group later.

Men in the group blocked off entry points with ATVs, the situation escalated as some of the men began yelling “white power,” Booker said. He and a friend reportedly were trying to leave when he was ambushed by two people. Booker said he was dragged toward a tree and pinned against it as the men yelled multiple times, “Get a noose.”

Footage shows Booker on his knees by a tree surrounded by a group of people. He suffered a minor concussion, scrapes and bruises.

Booker said after he was charged in connection with the attack, “There’s nothing more American than charging a Black man in his own attempted lynching.”

He can now either request that the court review the decision to deny him a public defender, hire his own attorney or represent himself.
 
Men in the group blocked off entry points with ATVs, the situation escalated as some of the men began yelling “white power,” Booker said. He and a friend reportedly were trying to leave when he was ambushed by two people. Booker said he was dragged toward a tree and pinned against it as the men yelled multiple times, “Get a noose.”
Did he commission Juicy Smollett to write the script for this? I can't fathom a faker, more bullshit story dreamed up by a dumb jogger trying to race card his way out of trespassing on private property. Making up this kind of patently false shit should be its own separate charges.
 
Did he commission Juicy Smollett to write the script for this? I can't fathom a faker, more bullshit story dreamed up by a dumb jogger trying to race card his way out of trespassing on private property. Making up this kind of patently false shit should be its own separate charges.
It always, always involves a noose with hoaxers. I swear they've been trained to bring up a noose every time. Their entire culture is permanently obsessed, even though pubic hangings haven't been a thing for decades and haven't been common for probably over a century.

If there's a litmus test for a hate crime being fake, it's the inclusion of a noose, hypothetical or otherwise.
 
I was gonna go and agree that even the most niggerish of nigger should receive representation if too broke for it. But i understand he does have the money in a Gofundme. If he wants to ask for gibs after hoaxing a hate crime then this nigger should pay out of pocket.
 
Blacks have no Theory of Mind when it comes to white people. They‘re so convinced that as the subaltern, they know how the master thinks, but in fact they have no idea. They are entirely enclosed in the bubble of 1. Mythology passed down from family that will focus primarily on priming them with paranoia and resentment so that the first time a nice young white teacher gently shushes them they‘ll chimp out and 2. Actually believing that the upper middle class white suburban family of the sort presented in Get Out is how almost all white people live.

Get Out has great utility here. You know how if you watched it as a white person you found yourself thinking, “Ok but white people aren’t actually into black people so none of this works as motive.” White people rarely want to have sex with black people, and if we appropriate their “creations” we do so not because we long to access their vision but because we’re so generous with our own creations (ie the modern world including literally everything black people use and enjoy) that the deep, childish, resentful pettiness that is inherent in the idea that if a black person decides to (wear a certain hairstyle, demonstrate a dance move, speak a meme phrase) then no white people are allowed to do those things ever just...doesn’t exist in us.

Anyway this lack of theory of mind is at work with their bizarre obsessions with things that happened to black people 100+ years ago. They keep themselves all spun up and aggrieved and build that into their kids from childhood, and THEY tell their kids about nooses and shit, and they assume that white people have the same thoughts. They tell each other that whites are obsessed with “black bodies” despite all evidence pointing to the incontrovertible fact that whites want nothing more than to not be around or deal with black bodies, and even whites who pretend otherwise would be greatly relieved to find themselves segregated.
 
Haha fair enough, was just curious if you happened to have specific reading you recommended. Maybe wikipedia will have some good sources for once :)
It's less of a philosophy and more of a concept that doesn't need a lot of explanation. It's just the ability to comprehend someone else's thought process. If you lack theory of mind, you assume everyone has the same thoughts and feelings as you, so if they behave in a way differently than you, you assume malice because it's the only explanation you understand.

You know how leftists immediately assume that everyone against CRT is just an evil racist Nazi? That's because they lack theory of mind. They believe CRT is simply "teaching kids that racism is bad", and because of the lack of theory of mind they believe you think that too, which means when you say CRT is bad and anti white, you must just be lying because you are evil. They cannot comprehend the idea of you believing something they do not believe.

The noose thing is the same way. The only reason blacks think whites are obsessed with nooses is because blacks are obsessed with nooses. That's all.

Based on my 👏 lived experience 👏, I'd estimate a good 60% of humans completely lack theory of mind and another 20% or so have it, but very weakly. These numbers are probably too low, but I'm feeling generous.
 
This Theory of Mind stuff sounds interesting. Got any resources where I could read more about it?
I don't know of good resources teaching about the theory of mind directly, but I enjoy Jonathan Haidt's moral foundations framework and you need to understand the theory of mind to get value out of later parts of it. Perhaps its really just a really structured subset of a theory of mind?

In the beginning it tries to explain "how do people navigate moral problems?"

But then it goes one level up and asks "how do differences in how people make their own moral decisions affect their ability to understand other people's moral decisions?". I don't think it calls it a theory of mind, but it's pretty much the same skillset and it might be interesting to you.

Then it goes one level further and asks, "how can your understanding of the differences in your moral values and someone else's enable you to talk to them in a way that is meaningful to them?" which is honestly a much needed lesson for people in $CURRENT_YEAR. Not a dig at you, that's a comment on society.

And if he tells the story of why he was doing this research, even better. It involves him as an academic admitting he was wrong and not continuing to force the data to fit his desired outcome. Basically, him acquiring the theory of mind was his turning point.

If this sounds close enough to relevant to you, he's done some talks you can probably find online, and he's written the book The Righteous Mind. In my case I can get both the digital book and audiobook from my local library so you might be able to access the book on the cheap.
 
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