Resources on Hate Crimes for Law Enforcement
July 2014 
Voiceover: Beat Intro
00:00	
This is the Beat—a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest community policing 
topics facing our nation.
Nazmia Alqadi
00:08	
Hello and welcome. My name is Nazmia Alqadi, and on behalf of the COPS Office I would like to 
introduce you to Patrice O’Neal. Patrice O’Neal is a chief executive officer and executive producer for 
The Working Group, a non-profit organization that developed Not in Our Town, a national anti-hate 
campaign. The COPS Office and Not in Our Town are working together for safe and inclusive 
communities. Today, Patrice will be discussing the Not in Our Town Project, the COPS-funded project, 
the hate crime reporting gap, and the available resources for law enforcement. Patrice, please tell us 
about the Not in Our Town project and where it got its start. 
Patrice O’Neal
00:44	
Not in Our Town has turned into a movement to stop hate; address bullying; and build safe, inclusive 
communities for everyone. But it started as a film. In 1995, we produced a film about people in Billings, 
Montana, who stood up against hate crimes. And it was really about the actions of ordinary citizens. It 
started with graves being overturned at a Jewish cemetery with K.K.K. flyers on the cars of people 
after they came out of the Martin Luther King celebration. People in town knew they had to do 
something. So when the African-American church had skinheads show up at their service and were 
very intimidating, members of other congregations showed up, and the skinheads went away. The 
Native-American woman who had her house plastered with racist graffiti—members of the painters’ 
union showed up to paint it over, and 100 neighbors showed up to watch.
In this whole atmosphere, there was a key role of the chief of police, Wayne Inman. He was an early 
advocate and leader in community policing. What he said to the town is, “Yes, this is a law 
enforcement problem, but this is really a community challenge, and we have to deal with it together.” 
His leadership was very instrumental in how the town responded. The culminating event took place 
when a six-year old boy had placed a menorah in his window for Hanukah, and a brick was thrown to 
the window and landed on his bed. People knew that the stakes were high and that someone could 
really be harmed in a hate crime, and they didn’t want that to happen. They started putting paper 
menorahs in their windows. That year, 10,000 people put menorahs in their windows, and the 
skinheads went away. 
I think the role of the police chief is absolutely critical in this story. And it’s one of the reasons that as 
Not in Our Town pushed out and moved forward, police departments became involved. We thought 
we would do ten town halls meetings that year when the program premiered on P.B.S. There were 
over 100. There were all kinds of screenings. They were held in high schools, in community meetings, 
in police departments. What people wanted to talk about was just not what happened in Billings but 
what was happening in their own community. So we’ve been following these stories ever since. 
Nazmia
03:06
Thank you. So, Patrice, the Not in our Town project is based on partnerships and community 
engagement. Can you elaborate on these two principles?
Patrice
03:15
We feel very strongly, and what we’ve seen over the years is that change really takes place at the local 
level. For us, our key partners are people in communities who are committed to taking action in 
schools, in civic life, in their workplaces, and through law enforcement to change the atmosphere, to 
not only respond to hate crimes but to look at the bias incidents and the everyday intolerance that 
could lead to these hate crimes. 
I think our partners are pretty obvious. Obviously, law enforcement is really important, and that’s why 
we’re so pleased about this partnership with [Department of Justice] / COPS [Office] and with law 
enforcement leaders across the country. But it’s also faith groups, it’s schools, it’s civil leaders, it’s local 
media. It’s the institutional leadership in a community that can help create change. And then of 
course, it’s the everyday citizen who wants to make their town better, who wants to stand up when 
they see a racist incident or someone being attacked just because of who they are. Those people—
Not in Our Town gives a frame for those community members who want to stand up and do 
something. 
Now, our natural allies are groups like [Department of Justice] / COPS [Office], local law enforcement 
agencies, and prosecutors. But then we work often with public television and public media. I’ll give you 
a great example of that. We produced a film in 2011 called Light in the Darkness. It was a story about a 
hate crime killing in Long Island of immigrants in an attack by a group of high school students. We 
shared that film on P.B.S. 
The Kansas City P.B.S. station convened a meeting including their key law enforcement leaders and 
civic leaders. They convened a screening of this, and out of that screening came a hate crimes task 
force. So we were really pleased to partner with K.C.P.T. We are now partnering with them as they 
cover the recent hate crimes killings in Kansas City, in Overland Park, that happened in April: the 
attacks on a Jewish community center that resulted in the death of three people who happened to be 
Methodist and Catholic. That’s an ongoing relationship with us. Public media is a key partner. 
Then we have partnerships with groups that want to stand up to intolerance. For example, United 
Methodist just screened our most recent film, Waking in Oak Creek, which is part of our [Department 
of Justice] / COPS [Office] initiative, at their annual meeting. There were hundreds of faith leaders 
from across the country who want to carry that film into their communities to discuss how we can 
bring our law enforcement and faith leaders together to really create a more neighborly atmosphere 
and get to know each other across faith and ethnic lines before something like a hate crime happens. 
Our partnerships are essential and very much imbedded in how we work in local communities.  
Nazmia
06:18
So, what is the hate crime reporting gap, and why is it so important to have a conversation around it?
Patrice
06:23	
One of the key elements in a community in addressing hate crime, both responding to it and 
preventing it, is law enforcement. We have the challenge now where there is a huge gap between the 
number of hate crimes that are reported every year by local law enforcement to the [Federal Bureau 
of Investigation], that are gathered in the annual statistics released to the public, and the number that 
actually occur. We know that a larger number occur because Bureau of Justice Statistics does research 
to ascertain what is the victimization really. Are there hate crimes? Are there crimes across the board 
whether it is rape or other forms of criminal activity that are not reported? 
So you look at a year like 2011. You look at the crimes that are reported. There were about 6,222 hate 
crimes reported by local police to the [Federal Bureau of Investigation] that was released that year. 
Government reported there were 6,222 hate crimes. Actually, [Bureau of Justice Statistics] looked at 
the hate crimes that happened, and they estimated there were over 200,000 that occurred. So that’s a 
huge gap. How does that happen, why does that happen, and why is it so important to address it? 
There are a few reasons. 
The research shows that many people don’t trust that the police will do something about a hate crime 
if they report it. So that’s a huge hurdle: one that law enforcement can address by taking some key 
steps. The other is, I think, more complicated. Victimization is a real challenge across the board. People 
are often afraid or reticent to report crimes. For example, many immigrants who are attacked are 
afraid that if they report a crime, it may affect their immigration status. There is—I think what we’re 
seeing in hate crimes, as we do often in rape, for example—there is internal shame, which is so hard 
to talk about and discuss and is really, really a challenging problem. But it’s one that we’re hoping, 
through films and resources and community discussions, we can try to address. 
How do we get people to come forward? As the son of a woman who was murdered in a hate crime 
said, “How can we address a problem if we don’t even know it exists, if we don’t even have a statistic 
to name it?” So the hate crimes reporting gap is a symptom of a larger problem—fear and reticence on 
the part of people in the community who are being targeted and law enforcement that may not be 
trained enough or understand how to investigate hate crimes and how to make sure they get 
reported and maybe not even be cognizant of why it’s important to acknowledge and report hate 
crimes. 
These crimes are not just an attack on the individual. They are an attack on an entire community. They, 
like terrorism—and I think it’s a reasonable comparison—they instill fear in an entire group into a 
larger group. So, for example, in our film Light in the Darkness, we tell the story of an Ecuadorian 
immigrant, Marcelo Lucero, who was murdered on the streets of Patchogue, New York, in an attack by 
a group of teenagers who roamed the streets of  this town looking for Mexicans to beat up. When this 
hate crime happened, Latinos across the country were given a message: “You are fair game. And there 
are people who could be wandering around, looking for people who simply look or appear to be 
Latino, and they are potentially going to beat you up.” So it has this larger—it’s a message-oriented 
crime that threatens to really tear at the fabric of civil society, of our communities. It creates fear and 
distrust. 
That’s why we have hate crime laws, to really recognize the dangerous and divisive nature of these 
crimes. So, of course you want to recognize the crime to support the victim. But you want to support 
your entire community by recognizing these crimes and getting it out in the open so we can do 
something about it together. 
Nazmia
10:42
That’s great. And I think that’s a great tie-in with the next question. What advice would you give to law 
enforcement agencies about preventing and responding to hate crimes?
Patrice
10:50	
I think first acknowledging hate crimes and really talking with your peers and your department and 
making sure you recognize the signs of hate and bias. Quite often, police departments are 
overburdened in so many places and have such a difficult job. 
Sometimes they forget to ask the questions that will make it clear whether bias was a motivation. One 
of the things we’re trying to do with this partnership with [the Department of Justice] / COPS [Office] 
is to present films and resources that will give people stories and examples of why it’s so important to 
answer those questions and ask those questions. So you look for the signs. You look for the obvious 
signs. Is there a difference in the makeup of the perpetrator and the victim? Was there anything said 
in the attack that would indicate a bias? Was there any indication, perhaps, on what kind of search 
they are doing on a computer, or is there any history of bias? 
Or even some very straightforward training that police officers can use to know to ask the right 
questions at the time to see if bias is a possible motivation. And then there’s deeper training. How do 
you recognize—although most hate crimes are not committed by organized groups like white 
supremacist groups, you often can look for that by their tattoos and some of the things they are 
wearing. There are signals of those kinds of things. I think the vast majority are mostly committed by 
people who have inherent bias and inherent hate in their hearts. So looking for those signals that bias 
was a motive in the interview with the perpetrator afterward is really important. 
Even more than that, in addition to the investigation: communicating to people in your town, in your 
city, that law enforcement agencies really care about hate and bias, that you want to understand. 
There is a pattern of bias incidents. We know that bias incidents can lead to further crimes, that there 
can be a pattern that can lead to more violence. How do you nip that in the bud? By having law 
enforcement officers communicate with people in their town who may be vulnerable to hate crimes. 
Asking them if any incidents have happened, anything they have been concerned about, any attacks 
that have been made, going out into the community and really asking these questions, opening a 
discussion with people so that if there are signs of trouble, the police are more aware of it and can look 
for something that may avert a much more violent crime. 
One of the powerful things about engaging in this and really talking to your community is that you start 
to build trust between the police department and people who are vulnerable to hate, people who 
may be targets of hate crimes. Those conversations don’t usually come up. When there is distrust of 
the police, sometimes there is this idea that the police wouldn’t care. We’ve seen in many of our 
stories that when police reach out, when law enforcement leaders reach out to communities, it can 
help change the atmosphere. There are some obvious advantages for every department with that. It 
is an opening, and we hope that our films and resources and discussion provide an opening for a 
different kind of discussion relationship between law enforcement and communities that may be 
vulnerable to hate crimes or who experienced these bias incidents.
Nazmia
14:41
That is also another good segue into . . . what are some of the Not in Our Town resources that are 
available for law enforcement?  
Patrice
14:48
Well, what we learned from the original Not in Our Town film is that stories from one community can 
help open up a discussion in another. So just as the original Not in Our Town film spread discussions 
about various kinds of hate, bias, and intolerance that existed in communities across the country, we 
felt that we wanted to do something that could really help law enforcement and communities have 
deeper discussions. So, in partnership with [the Department of Justice] / COPS [Office], we’re creating 
five new films that are examples of law enforcement and communities working together. What 
happens when a hate crime happens? What are some positive examples of law enforcement working 
with communities? That is what we have found in these stories. 
There are three films that are done. The first one that we will be releasing is Waking in Oak Creek. It’s 
a story of the hate crime killing of six Sikh Temple members in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in August 2012 
and the shooting of Brian Murphy, a lieutenant who was a first responder on the scene. He was shot 
17 times and lived. The remarkable thing about this film is that you see tremendous connection now 
between the police department, the city, the Sikh community, and the entire community. So this film 
tells the story of the first year after this crime and how the incident really transformed the city of Oak 
Creek. 
The other is A Prosecutor’s Stand, about a prosecutor as he takes three cases to the court system, 
three hate crimes cases. We see how difficult these cases often are but how vital it is to recognize 
them. It’s a profile of Victor Wong from the San Francisco District Attorney’s office.  
The third is from a hate crime cop, a hate crimes investigator in the San Diego Sheriff’s Department 
who takes us through the five lessons she’s learned in her years investigating hate crimes. So this is a 
film we thought could be used in roll call. And all of these films will have discussion guides with them, 
and they will be on NIOT.org/COPS, on our new site that we’re producing that includes resources for 
law enforcement, many kinds of tools, other videos, discussion guides, and materials. 
So I think this partnership, we are so grateful to be working with COPS [Office] and also other partners 
like International Association of Chief of Police. The Civil Rights Division has made Not in Our Town one 
of their key priorities for this year. 
So it’s an exciting moment to be working with the people in a town who can really help change the 
atmosphere. We’ve seen it over and over and over again. A police officer taking the lead and standing 
up in front of his or her community and saying, “We want to stop hate crimes, and we want to work 
with you to do this together.” It can send a powerful message and really make a huge difference in our 
towns. 
Nazmia
17:53
Thank you, Patrice, for providing us with your expertise and time today. This podcast is part of a series 
of podcasts related to the COPS Office project with Not in Our Town. For more information and 
additional resources, please visit the NIOT and COPS Office joint web page. 
Voiceover: Beat Exit
18:11	
The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice, COPS Office. The COPS 
Office helps to keep our nation’s communities safe by giving grants to law enforcement agencies, 
developing community policing publications, developing partnerships, and solving problems.
Voiceover: Disclaimer
18:27	
The opinions contained herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official 
position or polices of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, 
products, or services should not be considered an endorsement by the authors or the U.S. 
Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.