Napierala Pleads Guilty in Cross Burning Case

February 25th, 2009

Last July a wooden cross, approximately four feet in height, was set on fire on Mario Echevarria and Kelly Kohr's front lawn in Buffalo, NY.  According to an article in The Buffalo News, yesterday Donald R. Napierala pled guilty to two felony charges, including a hate crime, for setting said cross on fire "in front of the South Buffalo home of a mixed-race couple."  Mario Echevarria is Puerto Rican and Kelly Kohr is white.  

Napierala was arrested on July 7, 2008, about two and half hours after dousing the cross in lighter fluid-soaked cloth, lighting it on fire and watching it burn before walking away.  The authorities described Napierala as a white supremacist who hated Echevarria because he was Latino and who had been in a fist fight with Echevarria during an independence day party.  Echevarria had allegedly punched Napierala in his right eye, and according to authorities Napierala was seeking revenge.  Napierala faces between three and half to seven years in prison and will be sentenced on April 22 at 9:30am EST.  The two felony charges will run concurrently.

In a press release issued by the United States Department of Justice in 2004, the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, R. Alexander Acosta, stated that "cross burning remains a vicious symbol of hatred."  We at NCLR agree and believe that in this case, four years after the DOJ's release, justice has been served.  The crosses that were once being used by the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate and harass African Americans are now being used by white supremacists to intimidated and harass Latinos.  

Read the full article.