InsideOut at City Hall

by Annise D. Parker

HATE-CRIMES WATCH

The police department closely monitors bias crimes

About 2 a.m. on Saturday, September 8, a green Ford pickup carrying five or six young white males stopped in the 600 block of Alabama next to someone they assumed was gay. The passengers suddenly jumped out and began beating and kicking the victim. A short time later, they found another young man a block away. Unlike Paul Broussard, both victims escaped their assailants before they were seriously hurt, even though one attacker reportedly had a metal bar. They both reported the hate crime to police.

Hate crimes sometimes pick up when students return to college. And since they weren’t caught, several observers predicted the group might return. Apparently, they didn’t.

“There’s no pattern. They may never do it again,” explains Lt. Milton Jones, the Houston Police Department hate-crimes coordinator.

Before September 11, 2002, hate crimes were committed mostly by this kind of thrill seeker: young, drunk males looking for someone different to harass

or hurt or something to vandalize.

That same year, the Texas Legislature finally passed comprehensive and enforceable hate-crimes legislation, the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act. The bill includes sexual orientation (although because of Rep. Warren Chisum, the bill includes the wording sexual preference), but not gender identity.

The Houston Police Department website uses sexual orientation, the correct terminology. The Hate Crimes hotline (713/308-8737) button is prominently displayed on the front page of the site, www.ci.houston.tx.us/hpd/home/htm. The linked hate-crimes page is quite impressive, all the more so because of the outstanding program behind it. I’m extremely proud of the progress we have made in the past five years and painfully aware that the majority of hate crimes go unreported.

Soon after taking office in 1998, mayor Lee P. Brown greatly enhanced HPD’s hate-crime efforts by appointing the city’s first hate-crimes coordinator and establishing a hotline. Just a year later, police chief C. O. Bradford issued 600-37, a historic general order, making hate crimes HPD’s “highest investigative priority.” That doesn’t mean that a vandalism case that could be a hate crime takes precedence over a murder investigation. But a vandalism case that is red flagged as a possible hate crime would take top priority over any other vandalism case, and so forth.

This is how HPD handles a suspected hate crime:

A police officer fills out an incident report, which includes numerous categories that must be checked yes or no—juvenile, domestic violence, gang, hate crime. Each yes causes the report to print out automatically in the appropriate HPD division. Jones added “hate crime” to the incident report checklist shortly after his appointment.

Since officers have to check yes or no for each category, they tend to check yes if there’s a possibility of a hate crime.

About 75–125 incident reports print out each month in Jones’s office. He hands them to the six-member research and analysis squad for screening. The researcher studies the incident report and returns it to Jones if it appears to be a hate crime. Jones receives back 15–25 reports every month.

The lieutenant attaches two critical documents to this batch of incident reports before sending them to the appropriate division commander: the Hate Crime Case Referral Form and a list of 23 common hate-crime indicators, both of which he instituted. The form, which begins with a reference to the 1999 general order, requests that the division investigate the incident as a hate crime and keep the hate-crimes unit apprised of the investigation.

The division must follow up on suspected hate crimes, even those without leads, with more interviews and searches. If a suspect is apprehended, investigators must specifically look for evidence regarding hate crimes and ensure that the victim receives the proper social-service referrals. For example, even a vandalism report or a racial epithet scratched on a car with no witnesses and no leads gets a second look.

HPD cadets and officers are trained to distinguish hate crimes. They may already carry several printed reminders in the squad car—the Anti-Defamation League hate-crimes card used by many police departments as well as the department’s hate-crime tip card.

Post 9/11

Hate crimes flourished after September 11, with a sharp spike in those based on ethnic/national origin. Police departments all over the country pled for tolerance. Some Arab-American groups issued a Muslim Community Safety Kit.

“The hotline lit up,” Jones says. The hate crimes unit began making more and more presentations to community groups. Local confirmed hate-crime reports almost tripled, jumping from 22 in 2000 to 56 in 2001:

2000

Racial bias…6

Religious bias…7

Sexual orientation…5

Ethnic/national origin…4

Disability…0

Multiple bias…0

Total…22

2001

Racial bias…14

Religious bias…5

Sexual orientation…12

Ethnic/national origin…20

Disability…0

Multiple bias…5

Total…56

The “reactive” perpetrator who felt personally attacked on 9/11 replaced the “thrill seeker” as the predominant hate criminal.

By far the worst post-9/11 hate crime in Houston involved several men who went on a crime spree, raping Arab-American women as their husbands watched. Most reactive incidents, however, involved vandalism (racial epithets on cars), physical assault, or verbal phone threats.

Jones cannot recall any religiously motivated crimes in Houston that did not target the Jewish community. Yet, while anti-Semitic crime skyrocketed in California, reported incidents in Houston remained fairly constant over the past three years (7 in 2000; 5 in 2001; 6 in 2002). Crimes based on sexual orientation dropped significantly in 2002, but most other bias crimes rose slightly.

Racial bias…26

Religious bias…6

Sexual orientation…8

Ethnic/national origin…27

Disability…0

Multiple bias…2

Total…69

Forty-one suspects have been arrested in 24 cases. Four suspects were arrested in two of the eight cases involving sexual orientation. But without pulling up each case, it is impossible to determine the number of convictions, because the district attorney’s office does not break down its final conviction statistics into all categories.

The numbers game

In 2001, 9,730 hate crimes were voluntarily reported to the FBI, which still does not require reporting. The breakdown: 45 percent racially motivated; 21.6 percent ethnicity/national origin; 18.8 percent religion; 14.3 percent sexual orientation; 0.4 percent disability. Two-thirds are crimes against people, and slightly more than half of those involve intimidation.

With 33 million residents, California accounted for about one quarter of the 9,730 reported cases. Texas (20 million) reported 540 that year. Yet Massachusetts (about one-third the size of Texas) reported more hate crimes, 608. And Arizona, smaller still, reported 506.

Law enforcement underreporting may account for some of the disparity in state-reporting numbers. And it’s easy to imagine that fewer hate crimes are reported to law enforcement officers in more conservative states or regions of states.

“Some people just accept it,” Jones says. Or victims rationalize, “It comes with the territory. The cops won’t do anything.’’

“People may not be aware how seriously HPD takes hate crimes,” Jones said. He is one officer who is determined to change that perception.

Annise Parker is serving her third term in Houston City Council At-large Position 1 and has announced her candidacy for city controller. To receive her bi-monthly email newsletter, contact annise.parker@cityofhouston.net or call 713/247-2014. Her website is www.ci.houston.tx.us/city govt/council/1.

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