Attack on Latinos Shines Spotlight on Utah’s Hate Crimes Law

A man walked into Lopez Tires in Salt Lake City, Utah, last week, announced his intention to “kill Mexicans” and then beat the shop’s owner and his teenage son with a metal pole so severely that the younger man was sent to the hospital in critical condition, the authorities said. A suspect was quickly caught, but under Utah law he cannot be charged with a hate crime.

The attack on Jose Lopez and his son Luis has drawn new attention to the hate crimes law on the books in Utah, which has long frustrated law enforcement officials because it can be applied only to misdemeanors, not felony crimes like murder or serious assault, rendering it largely ineffective.

“The statute that we have is such an untenable and unworkable statute that we have not had a successful prosecution of a hate crime for the last 20 years at the state level,” said Sim Gill, the district attorney for Salt Lake County. “It is worthless. It is not worth the paper it is written on.”

A man walked into the Lopez family’s business on Nov. 27 and “said he wanted to kill Mexican guys,” said Jose Lopez, who suffered a laceration to his arm in the attack.

“I don’t know why,” Lopez said Tuesday. “I don’t have any problems with anybody.”

According to charging documents released by the prosecutor, the suspect, Alan Dale Covington, 50, attacked Jose Lopez first, striking him on the shoulder, before Lopez’s son Luis tried to come to his defense. Covington then struck Luis Lopez in the face with the metal pole, causing lacerations and fractures to his face.

When police arrived, they found Luis bleeding profusely from his face and “gurgling and coughing on his own blood,” the charging documents said. He was taken to a hospital, where a tube was inserted to assist with his breathing, and was released Friday, his father said.

Gill said the hate crimes statute in Utah “underscores the insult to the injury” of an attack because it can be applied only to misdemeanors, which are bumped up to felonies when they are classified as hate crimes.

But that means a violent assault, like the one visited upon Jose Lopez and his son, or any other felony offense cannot be categorized as a hate crime. Gill called the law “counterintuitive.”

“You would think a hate crime is the most egregious kind of conduct and you would want to be able to apply it that way,” he said.

Covington has been charged with three felonies in connection with the attack, including two counts of second-degree assault and unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon. (He has previously been convicted of robbery, domestic violence and attempted aggravated assault.) He also faces two misdemeanor drug crimes, according to charging documents. If convicted on all charges, he could face a maximum sentence of more than 26 years in prison.

It was not clear on Tuesday if Covington, who the authorities said was homeless, had legal representation. He is being held with bail set at $100,000.

It is also unclear whether federal prosecutors could file hate crimes charges in the case. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah, John W. Huber, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Initial reports, including police documents, about the attack indicated that Covington had expressed a desire to kill someone, but had not made statements that alluded to racial or ethnic bias, said Sgt. Brandon Shearer, a spokesman for the Salt Lake County Police Department.

Shearer said members of the Lopez family subsequently told the police that during the assault the suspect had said “something to the effect of ‘I hate Mexicans, I am going to kill Mexicans.’”

Covington told officers that he had attacked the shop because he believed it to be part of a conspiracy against him by the Mexican Mafia, a prison gang active mostly in California. He was found to be under the influence of methamphetamine when he was arrested shortly after the attack and was also found to be in possession of heroin, Shearer said.

Attempts have been made in the past to amend the Utah law, known as the Hate Crimes Penalties Act, to make it easier for prosecutors to use it. The most recent attempt, in 2016, was led by state Sen. Stephen H. Urquhart, a Republican, and inspired by an attack on a group of gay men in Salt Lake City.

That effort was defeated, which Urquhart and other supporters attributed to the opposition of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the state’s dominant religion, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

Gill said opponents of expanded hate crimes protections have also expressed a concern that a new law would “create special rights for people” or give the state the power “to police somebody’s thoughts.”

“But that’s not what is happening when we have evidence,” he said. Pointing to a case like the attack on the Lopez family, when a suspect is alleged to have explicitly stated a bias during an attack, he added, “I don’t have to speculate about what is going through your mind and what message you are sending.”