American Notes BOSTON

Bostonians were doubly outraged last week at the news of a horrible crime. The first shock came when police arrested eight young gang members for the slaying of Kimberly Rae Harbour, 26, who had been raped, beaten and stabbed more than 100 times. The second occurred with the discovery that the murder had been committed a month ago during a Halloween wilding spree but had been hushed up by police.

Law-enforcement officials had an explanation: they feared a repeat of the media circus that surrounded the celebrated Stuart murder case, when police scoured the city for a black assailant only to learn that the real killer was the victim's white husband. Some community leaders insisted that if Harbour had been white and middle class instead of a poor black crack addict, the case would have been widely publicized. What they failed to note was that this crime was probably not about race but about gender. Before their rampage, the suspects, who were black and Hispanic, allegedly declared that they planned to "go rob females."