Act Against Violence ?Not In Colorado?

Because. [Program host, Cynthia Hessin] Good evening I'm Cynthia Hessen and we're glad you could join us for tonight's program, "Not in Our Town."

In a few minutes we'll take you to a town meeting in Colorado Springs which address the topic of hate crimes. But we also have with us in the studio tonight Saul Rosenthal, who is Director of the Mountain States Regional Office of the Anti-Defamation League, and David Powell, founding member of the Hate Crimes Task Force of the Colorado Lawyers Committee. And we will talk to each of them a bit about, uh, the experience in Billings as well as what may be the situation here in the Denver region and all across Colorado. Saul, let me turn to you first. I know that after this whole incident in 1993 in Billings, where the community came together to, uh, to stand against the, uh, neo-Nazi sort of things that were going on. There was a conference that you participated in, is that right? Yeah, it was about a year ago it was called, uh, the Face of Violence in America and it was held in Billings a number of participants from variety of organizations. Uh Clan Watch, the Anti-Defamation League, the attorney general, uh, of, uh, Wy- of Montana participated as well as some psychologists.

And it was a chance for people in the community who were interested in exploring the broader questions about how hate [clears throat] and violence occur in a community to get together and to spend what was, I think, three days in, in that particular setting. There are two things that occurred to me about Billings when it- when I saw the program not in our town. For one thing, that it's a very idyllic-looking little small town. The kind of place I think, that you wouldn't expect something to happen like this. And yet, it's in that part of the- the country which unfortunately, you know, has become known for- for white supremacist organizations. Yeah there, there really are no boundaries to bigotry, um. There are certain assumptions that large concentrations of, of ethnic minorities, or Religious minorities, sometimes make those acts less frequent. Uh, but it's not the case that you can really point to any place in the United States and say "This is, uh, a place where you don't expect hatred or you don't expect, uh, bigotry." All it takes is one person or a small group of people to be in a community, uh, who have, uh, who have these hateful attitudes and you can turn a rather peaceful idylic

comfortable community kind of setting into a very uncomfortable place for people in this case for a, for a Jewish family. Did you find that the people of Billings, not- not the Jewish family itself, but the others were- were surprised to find this going on in their town? I think so. I think it's always, uh, it's always disturbing to learn that you have this kind of virus living in the- in the community, um, though it's getting a little bit less so because of our modern communications with newspapers and televisions being as instantaneous and now even- the internet- you know we're dealing with the Internet and- and all of the ways that you can share information today. It's not quite as shocking. But people move from places like, uh, Los Angeles and Chicago and New York and Philadelphia to places like Billings to avoid the problems that they think there- that- that are present in those cities and hate is one of those problems that they're trying to get away from. So it can't be very comfortable to find that you wake up one morning and, uh, and found that you were trying to get away from something that you really just can't get away from.

Dave Powell is ,as we said, is he's with Holland in heart but he's also on the, um, Violence Task Force of the Colorado Lawyers Committee which tell us a little bit about the background on that I mean besides the obvious. Why was that formed? Sure, uh, the Colorado lawyers committee is a nonprofit organization made up of, uh, attorneys in private practice, uh, who practice at firms and who practice on their own in the Denver metro area. Uh, the Colorado Lawyers Committee is affiliated with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law which was started by President Kennedy, uh, to encourage, uh, corporate attorneys, um, to take up, uh, civil rights cases. The Hate Violence task force was formed approximately about three years ago, um. There is a hate violence task force, uh, affiliated with each lawyers committee in each city, um, where there is a Lawyers Committee. For instance, in Boston there is a lawyers committee made up of member firms, they have a hate violence task force and, uh, in Chicago I believe there's a Lawyers Committee they have a Hate Violence task force. The attorneys who are members of

the Hate Crimes Task Force are primarily interested in representing, uh, victims of hate crimes. And the, uh, purpose is also to educate the community about Colorado's- I think intimidation statute and to, uh, educate the community about racial issues in general. Now it's interesting when you say this was formed about three years ago. I mean in these 30 years since we, um, you know, passed civil rights legislation in this country and supposedly presumably a lot of attitudes had evolved. Does - does it surprise you that- that there seems to be a resurgence in- in hate crime and, um, intimidation? No it doesn't surprise me, um. I think the problem is that a lot of people just didn't know the extent of the problem, uh. It wasn't until the FBI started reporting on the prevalence of hate crimes and I believe the Colorado Bureau of Investigation does this too, that people started realizing that that is a problem. So it does not surprise me at all. [Hessin] Speaking of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, in getting prepared for this today I did talk to

to someone at CBI just to get some statistics and they were able to give me numbers for 1993 and 94. In 1993 there were two hundred twenty six victims in 94 they show 201 victims. So some large decrease there. But I think it's been made clear that a lot of this crime is not reported. Is that right? That's correct. I do think that's a serious problem. I admire the work that they and the committee are doing to try to educate. There's a real lack of information about hate crimes what constitutes a hate crime. Frequently, we found that law enforcement are reluctant to add ethnic intimidation charges. They're not clear about what constitutes ethnic intimidation. And sadly we think there's an assumption that's been promulgated by at least four of the newspapers here in Colorado that there's something is wrong with this legislation and that there's few problem in adding to a criminal offense the notion that the victim are black or Hispanic or

Asian or gay or Jewish or a female. And recognizing that those are factors which might have influenced the crime to had been committed at the back end. So I think there's a real education issue. I wouldn't look at the difference of those figures from one year to another and add any statistical significance to it. And I also think that that's a gross under representation of the number of victims of hate crimes in the state. [Hessin] OK so when so when you hear that there were two hundred and one in 94, you say what, is that half? [Rosenthal] I don't know what the figure would be. You know, we track anti-Semitic incidents at the Anti-Defamation League and for every one person who I know reports an anti-Semitic incident at a minimum there is Seven others who never do. So that's probably a very conservative number difference between this and whether that's accurate with regard to the breadth of hate crimes or not, I do not know. The gay community reports considerably lower numbers of these incidents and I'm not so sure whether that's because there are higher numbers or because the gay community are better about reporting those at least to the

gay and lesbian organizations than other communities are. [Hessin] So in some ways we're still early on in this process. I don't think most of the states started using an ethnic intimidation statute until three or four years ago, isn't that right? [Powell] I think that is correct. [Rosenthal] They're not in place in every state in the United States and the FBI has only been mandated to collect the statistics for about three or four years so it's going to take a while till the education process you know really starts a produce consistent results. And most assuredly and most of that law enforcement agencies don't necessarily report a lot of them don't even report. [Hessin] Aren't they required to, though under the statue? [Powell] They're required to, but a lot of them just don't so so what Saul says is correct, I mean, the statistics you have may not be totally accurate. I mean, I think CBI has to rely on other law enforcement agencies reporting these crimes to them. So to the extent that these agencies don't report the crimes, Those statistics are misleading. And the judgment is made by that office on that scene of who takes the report. [Hessin] Of whether this is a factor? [Rosenthal] Right and there are you know through no fault of their own

necessarily not nothing other than a lack with information. Don't recognize that if the assault is on a person of color or religious minority of one sort or another, won't immediately understand that that's a dimension to the crime and add as one of the one of the charges that might be made should the crime actually get reported. [Hessin] So in other words, what you're saying is unless they see you know some bald-faced graffiti or something, it may not occur to them that this is a crime of ethnic intimidation that's corrected or unless the unless the perpetrator of the crime are made clear that the reason that he or she committed the assault is because of the ethnicity. I think the first successful prosecution for example here in Colorado has to do with a group of Japanese students at Teikyo Heights University. It has very evident from the outset that the reason that they were assaulted was because they were Japanese. But I can see another instance in which a Japanese person may get engaged in some kind of activity, a conflict, with someone who's who's ah who's an Anglo, is a Caucasian. And it not be quite so evident at the front

end that the reason that the confrontation of the crime this occurred take place was because the victim was Is Japanese. [Hessin] Let me um refer us now to a town meeting that actually took place three weeks ago tonight in Colorado Springs. Same kind of uh gathering. People had watched Not in Our Town there and our sister station, KTSC, then staged a town meeting around this subject of hate crimes and we wanted you to see some excerpts from that now. now [repeated from above]. [Julie Cooper, Ground Zero] They are here in Colorado. The white supremacist organizations, the white aryan nation, the Ku Klux Klan, Christian Identity, and the neo nazis are here and I need to form a united front to ward off the hater crimes this is happening elsewhere. Your community is very similar to that of Billings, Montana. And I'm confident that we can respond just like Billings, Montana did to the hate this was perpetrated in their community. [Charles Duke, State Senator R-Monument, CO] We frequently are faced with issues similar to this in the

legislature and the one thing we must be careful NOT to do is to overreact. Um, we have to try to make some sort of a decision as to whether these I isolated incidents or whether they are an inherent part of the community. Now, from my perspective I simply do believe that hate crimes are an inherent part of the Colorado Springs community. No one has shown me anything yet to convince me of that data. That doesn't mean of course that we shouldn't be prepared. And that does not mean that a full community, uh, awareness of the danger from something like this shouldn't be fully explored And prepared for. Across America, incidences of hate crimes on continuous rise as we all know. Organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment collect data on the set basis of

these incidences all the time. The center showed a nationwide increase of 40% percent of reported cases from 1992 to 1994 four. And Senator Duke stated that he didn't believe that there were any crimes here in the state or the city. This coalition reported 185 such cases. In 1994 in the state of Colorado Yet most crimes that are categorized as hate crimes never find their way into the statistical reports. It has been estimated that for every hate crime reported, several dozen or more go unreported. Why is this? One, fear. People who are victims of hate crimes are fearful of reporting the incidences (Two) 2. Shame. Like many crimes of domestic violence, those who are the victims of hate crimes often feel ashamed for being victims. (Three) 3. Despair. Many victims of hate

crimes do not believe that reporting them would do good. As in the case with racial minorities whose experience leads them to... to the conclusion that officialdom (?) would do little as result of the complaints. After all, this is a white man's world. Number 4. Subterfuge. Governments don't hate crime, don't want hate crime statistics reported. (Sid Snyder, Jewish Voices for Justice) Our community is incredibly diverse. It's diverse along lines of race, religion, age sex, sexual orientation, culture, philosophy, and politics. It's not possible for any individual to gain a profound or in many cases, even meaningful understanding of who and what our neighbors we are. The element of bigotry is ignorance. We spend too much time talking and not enough time listening. All too common is the attitude that "I know, I understand, all I have to do is convince everyone else to believe as we do and all your problems will be solved." We need to step back.

We need to simply recognize the value of, and dignity inherent in each human being. Then, listen. Listen to those whose judgment we respect. But more importantly, listen to those about whom we have no real knowledge. By doing that, by forcing ourselves to understand the prejudices however low level they may be that we harbor we can do better understand and combat those who twist that very human trait to hateful and malicious ends. Once we've dealt with this personally, we can then work to create community. I have a question surprisingly. I'd like to direct it Chief Kramer for sort of an official answer. And I'd welcome any unofficial answers from any other panel members and that is, in your persp... From where you sit as Police Chief, what is the extent of the problem in this city right now? The hate crime problem in the... uhh... both either

bodily injury or vandalism. [Lorne Kramer, Colorado Springs Police Chief] I... I think to... to answer that question you have to look at it from two dimensions. I think that there's a lot of hate and hate crime that is not reported. So if you start looking at um... in fact the gentleman that spoke just a moment ago... I don't know if umm... The um... The racial slurs towards her daughter were reported or not. We know that a lot of those kinds of things happen almost every day in this... in this community like they do in a lot of communities. On the other hand, if you look just statistically, statistically, hate crime has shown a dramatic decrease in the last 2 years. But once again, we're I think we have to be guarded with that because if we just rely on what the statistics show, we could be lulled into a sense of satisfaction that hate crime or hate is dwindling or diminishing. I don't believe that is true. we think that the honest answer to that is that an awful lot of

the hate that individuals are susceptible to goes unreported. So, something was mentioned earlier and I think it's a really healthy sign and I want to mention this because I know Chief Inman (sp?) in Billings and I have a lot of respect for him. In 1993 and 1994. I'm sorry, 1992 and 1993, you may recall in this community we had the Klan came here and had rallies. We certainly have a constitutional right to, to exercise their First Amendment rights and we protected that. But Russia sent a very quiet message the way monitored. This particular group. We had a very small rally in 1993, and we have not heard from the Klan as far as them wanting to demonstrate in this community. I believe that a large part of that was, and our intelligence clearly showed that, this community came out in 1993, in 1992, the first rally they

had, and rallied in opposition to the Klan, voiced their objections to the presence of the Klan in Colorado Springs. They did get the kind of support that they anticipated that they get to hate crimes not being reported, It is very difficult for gays and lesbians to report hater crimes because in order to did that they have to come out. They have to come out on the reports. They have to come out on reports that are made public and that can be very scary. They can again be victimized over again, so they're not victimized just once, they're victimized many times over and that's why many, many hate crimes against gays and lesbians are NOT reported even though they are out there. [unidentified female audience member] If somebody in our community is the victim of a hate crime, in your experience and within the realm that you work on a daily basis, what kind of support do you know of that you can offer to that individual? For example, where could this gentleman's daughter go to her school, to her church, to her

synagogue, to the police department . . where could this girl go and get services if she's been a victim of a hate crime? [Snyder] We are lacking some central place that someone who, when you're a victim, OK, you're not necessarily thinking clearly and rationally there should be some central point where somebody can go and I think that we need to have we have to declare as a community that we are not going to accept bigotry. We have to have city officials that have the gonads to do so officially through a human rights ordinance. And I think this we need to establish a meaningful empowered Human Relations Commission and we're working towards that in partnership with government, not run by government, not run privately, but in partnership and there are people working towards that. [female audience member] Thank you. [Charles Duke] You know part of our challenge as a society is that, please Please do so! every time you get some stress in your life, don't look to government for the solution. [Luis Cortez, Minority Coalition] And having to agree with him, I don't think that government is the answer. I don't think the police department is the answer. I do not think that really a Human Relations Commission

is the answer. I think it's moderate, you know, the moderate majority in this community that has to take grasp of what is taking place and take it to where it belongs. The right's not going to do anything. The left is bleeding too much, so I think it's that moderate majority that's going to have to take grasp with this community. I think the nice thing about the video that we've seen is there was an absence of government participation, police participation in terms of getting the problem solved. There were painters, there were common citizens who got together without the help of those entities and are supposed to help us and did the job. [Hessin] And that from a town meeting in Colorado Springs three weeks ago [Dec. 20, 1995] sponsored by our sister station KTSC in Pueblo and also the Colorado Springs Independent newspaper. People were referring to the program "Not In Our Town" which we hope that you saw just a short time ago on Channel 6 relating an incident in Billings that happened in

1993 when a Jewish family in particular was victimized by persons unknown. And the whole community came to their aid. So what are things like now for that family? [Rosenthal] Well, the Schnitzer? family had a very positive reaction from the community initially when this whole thing happened and people came together. The problem that's happened at this point is that the community wants to move on and this is not an atypical kind of situation. They are seeing it perhaps a little too much as an isolated incident. And the Schnitzers are seeing it perhaps more as a pattern that needs to be constantly addressed. One incident that happened in the community that's continued to keep it alive is a conference that took place just a few months ago at Rocky Mountain College which is a local university in Billings, invited a leading spokesperson for the militia of Montana. Who has said some very hateful things in a number of other speeches to come and speak to this students with campus and be part a legitimate discussion

on race and prejudice and that's a problem for the Schnitzer family to have to constantly be confronted with the continuing dialogue in the community so it is been a bit difficult for them, and I think it's starting to wear on them a little bit. [Hessin] What about, I mean we talked before we went on air about how universities have that that sort of charge to bring controversial issues to the campus and let people be heard. What about knowing the enemy? [Rosenthal] There's a constant tension that goes on between this free exploration of ideas concept and the university, um, and making decent decisions about who should appear on a campus and who shouldn't. And where universities get confused is where the application of the First Amendment really fits. A university has no affirmative obligation to bring hate speakers on campus. Now, if someone with hateful speech wants to stand on a public university campus like a public square and talk in hateful a matter. Their speech might be protected under those instances. But somewhat universities have gotten the idea that bringing the David Dukes or colleague Abdul Mohammed or the

the Trockmens of the Militia of Montana onto campus somehow is a mandate of theirs and is a way of teaching people how to deal with hate. I am not convinced it's a very constructive strategy. [Hessin] You said, too, Dave, there is a conflict between peoples' First Amendment rights and the rights of the potential victims not to be harassed, obviously. Is this part of what the hate balance task force is out there trying to educate about? [Powell] Well we're primarily trying to educate people about the ethnic imitation statute. We do mini mock trials of hate crimes and for high schools and for colleges and in these mini mock trial scenarios, there are first amendment issues that are addressed. For instance, if somebody is handing out a leaflet that contains what is termed hate speech. Uh, the issue is whether or not when they're handing that out are they committing a crime of ethnic intimidation? For instance, if I was to go and hand out flyers on CNN Sunday morning in front of a synagogue

attacking, you know, Israel would that be protected speech or would that be ethnic intimidation? So we discuss these scenarios with the students. And so those are some of the issues that are addressed during the mini mock trial that we the colleges and the high schools. [Hessin} Among the states that have ethnic intimidation statutes now are they all pretty much the same and what, in a nutshell, do they say? [Powell] Well basically, I think all the states who have, at least from my knowledge, All of the states that have it think intimidation stance or try to focus upon prohibited conduct that is motivated by somebody's race. There have been statutes that had been successfully challenged I believe there has a statute in Minnesota that was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. There has a statute in Wisconsin that was initially struck down by their state Supreme Court but was later upheld by the United States Supreme Court. And I don't believe that anybody has challenged the Colorado statute yet but. People had to be careful in that way this they

draft these statutes so they do not infringe upon somebody's First Amendment rights. [Hessin] Before we have to say goodbye, Saul, we know that probably the most visible thing we've seen happen in the Denver County area within the recent past have it been the clash between the Klan and the Martin Luther King Jr. marches, and marchers that is, a couple of years ago, since we are on the eve of that once again next week, what are you expecting? Any more trouble? [Rosenthal] I don't think there is going to be much activity this year. I think the novelty of that kind of an event has worn off and it is pretty clear to people in our city that there is no great value in drawing attention to those kinds of, uh, kinds of events. The Anti-Defamation League from the very start, urged people that the best strategy was to simply not show up to confront the Klan. That is not to say that we urged or argue that we should ignore the Klan. The Klan is very dangerous and we need to deal with them in very constructive ways. But confronting them in a public way creating another

incident which is newsworthy simply does not meet the objectives of silencing hate. What it does, is it provides the Klan and others with the kind of TV coverage that is motivation for why they do these things. [Hessin] And my thanks to Saul Rosenthal who is the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League as well to David Powell, a member of the Hate Violence Task Force of the Colorado Lawyers Committee. I am Cynthia Hessen. This has been part of Channel 6 "Act Against Violence Initiative" and we thank you for joining us. Good night.