RICHMOND (NEWS 1130) — The woman caught on video hurling racial slurs and swearing at an Asian woman in a Richmond parking lot is unlikely to be charged with a hate crime, according to a criminal lawyer.
The RCMP announced Saturday that it is investigating the incident and has contacted both women. By Saturday evening, over 3,500 comments had been posted to a Facebook page believed to belong to the woman caught on video.
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The first thing to understand, according to Vancouver lawyer Kyla Lee, is that uttering racial slurs is not a crime in and of itself.
“The reality is that many disturbing situations like this, while completely upsetting, completely unacceptable, reprehensible behaviour, don’t fall within the boundaries of the Criminal Code,” she says. “To charge somebody with a criminal offense often requires more than just hateful language which is, I think, a very upsetting thing for a lot of people.”
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