JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS … it might be wise for all of us to take a step back as the police continue to pursue avenues that will, we hope, lead them to the person or persons who hung a noose from the south goal post at the Davis High football stadium last weekend … not to mention those responsible for the racist and anti-Semitic graffiti discovered recently in the Olive Drive bike tunnel …

Our mayor noted that “For this city, this isn’t a fine moment,” and he’s right if he means it has disturbed our sensibilities and caused a sense of outrage that this could happen in Davis … but if he’s implying that those responsible for this cowardly act are homegrown products, he’s assuming facts not yet in evidence …

What if one day soon we learn they aren’t from Davis after all? … in the long and storied history of high school football in this country, there are hundreds and hundreds of cases of kids from one school “desecrating” the stadium of another school, sometimes in truly awful and ugly ways … it’s not likely that’s what happened here, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility either … just one theory among hundreds … at this point, we simply don’t know …

Attendees at a Wednesday night forum on the subject were told that the perpetrators of these crimes are generally young white males … while statistics might bear that out, and the facts of this case ultimately might fit that stereotype, we must be careful not to engage in the very sort of profiling that has been so rightly condemned in the past … until and unless a witness comes forward to say he saw a group of “young white males” running from the south goal post at Davis High School late one night, or a stadium security camera leads authorities to the same conclusion, we really don’t know who we’re looking for …

Profiling is wrong for a couple of reasons … first and foremost, it essentially makes suspects of an entire group of people and can sometimes lead to a conviction of the innocent, and second, it distracts law enforcement from looking elsewhere for suspects …

A TRAGIC HISTORY … Davis is a great town, otherwise those of us who have a choice would live elsewhere … but those who say we haven’t had racial incidents in our past have their heads in the sand … I remember well that sad day nearly 30 years ago when Davis High student Thong Hy Huynh was stabbed to death on the DHS campus in what was clearly a racially motivated murder … I also remember the day 20 years ago when Holmes Junior High student Andrew Mockus died after being pushed into a moving freight train near the UC Davis Arboretum in what was not a racially motivated murder …

In both cases, the perpetrators were indeed young white males, but no matter their motivation, the end result was the same: Two Davis teenagers died at the hands of other Davis teenagers … racially motivated or not, in my book they were both hate crimes …

GUILT BY ASSOCIATION … according to Lauren Keene’s account of Wednesday’s forum, “One parent noted sightings of a vehicle in town whose driver prominently displays a Confederate flag,” and the parent was assured by law enforcement that it was “being pursued as a possible lead.” … which is way over the top … now, I don’t like the Confederate flag any more than the next guy, and I tend to make negative assumptions about people who publicly display it, but such an expression of free speech shouldn’t make you a suspect in a hate crime …

Maybe it’s time to start searching the homes of all those University of Mississippi graduates living in town too … I mean, they don’t call Ole Miss the “Rebels” for nothing …

ANOTHER SPECKTACULAR EVENT … Davis’ own Cathy Speck, continuing her tireless efforts to help those with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), is looking for bicyclists who would like to join the Ride to Defeat ALS and Walk in Yountville in the Napa Valley on June 30 … Cathy is one of five in her family to be impacted by ALS, having already lost her mother, Dorothy, to the disease, along with brothers Paul and Larry … while Cathy will not be riding in the Napa event, she will be there on her uniquely decorated and locally famous tricycle, urging on the participants …

According to Suzie Goodenough, a former patient services coordinator for the Greater Sacramento Chapter of the ALS Association: “Cathy’s advocacy continues to be a motivation and an inspiration to others living with ALS and people with any diagnosis, in addition to everyone she meets. She encourages others to not take anything for granted in life.” … notes Cathy: “ALS is not contagious, but the excitement about the Ride is, so please come join us. Davis is the city of bikes, and we can prove it.” …

To sign up, contact Diane Viodes at (916) 979-9265 or by email at [email protected] … a great cause and a great ride, and besides, it’s hard to beat the Napa Valley on the last day in June …

GUILTY … I know there are several old professors somewhere who will cringe to hear me say it, but when you’ve been accused by waves of young men of some of the most awful crimes imaginable, as former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky has, you don’t sit silently at the defense table and expect jurors not to notice … even if you’re the least articulate person around, if you didn’t do it, you take the stand and tell the jury so …

The judge can instruct the jurors all he wants that they should not draw any conclusions from Sandusky’s silence, but it will fall on deaf ears … it’s a defense strategy doomed to failure … then again, it worked for O.J. Simpson …

— Reach Bob Dunning at [email protected]

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