When people pack assault rifles at presidential forums and town-hall meetings dissolve into shouting matches, it's easy to imagine such anger spilling over into the nation's simmering stew of racial prejudice.
A day after a self-proclaimed white supremacist was arrested in Baltimore for attempted murder in an assault on a 76-year-old black man, law enforcement officials and politicians expressed concern Wednesday that the tenor of current politics could prompt an increase in hate crimes.
"I think that for people who may be on the fringes already, the mood right now in the country might just be the little push they need to act on their feelings," said Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger. "Fortunately, we're not seeing that just yet."
There is no telling whether Calvin E. Lockner, 28, the man charged in the beating early Tuesday, was inspired by the national brawl over health care reform, but he told police officers that he "did not like people who were different from him."
Lockner goes by the nickname "Hitler," a name ascribed also to President Barack Obama by some of his more virulent critics.
Del. Samuel I. Rosenberg, a Democrat who represents Baltimore and the author of Maryland's 1988 hate-crimes statute, said there is a "very disturbing tone in the health care debate and among the 'birthers' " - people who insist that Obama, a native of Hawaii, was born outside the United States.
Such a tone, complete with insults hurled in public at those with opposite views, is deeply troublesome, Rosenberg said. But, he went on, "People are not going to be prosecuted for simple speech: There has to be a criminal act."
Arthur C. Abramson, executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council, said the country is experiencing an "environment of evil," and he linked the heated rhetoric at town-hall meetings with Tuesday's assault in Fort Armistead Park.
Television and radio are filled with "the hatred that is expressed on issues of the day," Abramson said. "It is important for us to remember that too often, and not that long ago, these issues can translate into reality."
Law enforcement officials around Maryland said Wednesday they had not detected any recent rise in the number of hate crimes.
In fact, figures provided by the Maryland State Police in a new report show a decline in such crimes. The total number reported statewide in 2006 was 540; in 2007 it was 427; and last year it was 390.
