"The recent arrest of nine black teen-agers in a string of assaults and robberies near the University of Virginia has ignited a debate about what 'hate crime' means, underscoring the fine line authorities walk when confronted with the possibility of reverse discrimination.

After the first arrests on Feb. 1, Charlottesville police said some suspects said they chose victims who looked white. Police added that two white girls accompanied the black suspects, and that neither has been arrested because they didn't throw any punches.

In total, police said, there were six attacks on an undisclosed number of white college students and at least two Asian students.

On Wednesday, the Virginia chapter of a white-rights group headed by former Ku Klux Klansman David Duke demanded local authorities charge the suspects with hate crimes.

Two days later, shortly after meeting with local black leaders concerned about how the case is being handled, Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy J. Longo reiterated that it was premature to call the attacks racially motivated.

The city's commonwealth attorney, Dave Chapman, has said he has not decided if he will treat the incidents as hate crimes. The questions that now need to be answered are, first and foremost, what is a hate crime? And do the recent attacks constitute hate crimes?

Virginia's hate-crime provision extends the punishments for three different misdemeanors: simple assault, which could mean simply brushing up against someone; trespassing; and assault and battery.

So far, four of the nine suspects have been charged with simple assault or assault and battery. But the other five all have been charged with felonies, which do not qualify for hate-crime charges.

Ironically, these five suspects' charges would have to be downgraded to misdemeanors before they could be charged with hate crimes.

Legal distinctions aside, the question of racial motivation continues to infuse the debate about how the suspects and the assaults should be viewed.

'I think there is this underlying reluctance to use hate-crimes statutes against minorities who commit crimes against non-minorities,' said Stephen Smith, an expert in criminal procedure at UVa's School of Law.

As Smith's UVa colleague Anne Coughlin pointed out, hate-crime statutes were enacted to rectify wrongs against minorities. To prosecute blacks for hate crimes, she suggested, conflicts with legislators' original intent.

But, said Smith, who is black, said, 'if those assailants targeted their victims, that should constitute a sufficient basis for a hate-crime charge. It's got to work both ways.'

Still, Coughlin warned against jumping to conclusions about any suspect's possible motives.

'The trickiest issue in criminal law often is mental state,' said Coughlin, who is white and, like Smith, a criminal-procedure specialist.

Coughlin said prosecutors need to distinguish between criminals who select victims based on race and those who are driven by racial hatred.

'You see a white guy, and you might think he's a wimp or he's got a lot of money or he's going to be a pacifist,' she said. 'You're checking out people based on their race because they've got what you want to take.'

By contrast, Coughlin said, people who attack other people because they hate their 'blackness' or 'whiteness' or other race stereotype are driven by racial hatred. Importantly, Coughlin noted, people can be charged with hate crimes for attacking people of their own race.

Coughlin added: 'We don't yet know what we mean when we say that a crime was a hate crime.'

Police and city councilors sound equally unsure about whether the recent attacks are hate crimes.

'Just because one or two or three people said this is why we did what we did doesn't mean everyone did it for those reasons,' Longo, the police chief, said Saturday.

Longo stressed that the investigation is ongoing, adding that police still have to interview other people possibly connected to the attacks and to compare statements.

Lt. J.W. Gibson, who is leading the investigation, speculated Friday that the assailants attacked their victims for the thrill of it.

City Councilor Maurice Cox added: 'I agree with Chief Longo that any label of this crime is premature, and it's ... Dave Chapman who will determine what type of crime this is.'

Cox continued: '1 just think that we have to be very careful as a community not to prejudge.'

Seeking to explain the crimes, Cox observed that Charlottesville is a university town and that there are built-in 'stress lines' between 'town and gown.'

Cox, a UVa architecture professor, added, '1 would be more inclined to accept that [explanation] than that it was racially motivated.'

No matter what conclusion police and prosecutors eventually reach, the investigation has generated anxiety among city councilors trying to placate both black leaders concerned that black suspects are being treated unjustly and a wider community worried about safety.

'Things like this, especially when violence is involved, can have a very negative overtone and image of Charlottesville,' Mayor Blake Caravati said. 'So, obviously, I'm very concerned and didn't have much sleep Thursday night from worrying about it.'

In the end, Smith, Coughlin and other legal scholars agreed that if the nine black suspects are guilty and if they were driven by racial hatred, then they should be charged with hate crimes.

'The policy of hate-crime laws is we want to live in a society where people are not targeted on the basis of race,' Smith said. 'We want to make this an open and free society for everyone.'" (Peter Savodnik and Adrienne Schwisow, The Daily Progress, February 10, 2002)