Eugene weekly., December 29, 2016, Page 8, Image 8

BY CORINNE BOYER
TRACKING HATE
AND BIAS CRIMES
IN EUGENE
F
ormer Lane County Commissioner candidate Dawn
Lesley recently reported a bias incident to the City
of Eugene’s Human Rights and Neighborhood In-
volvement office. A friend of Lesley’s came to her
after seeing swastikas spray-painted on a Trump
sign along I-5 in Lane County.
Lesley tells EW that she thinks the person who called
her, who is a member of the Jewish community, was con-
cerned that it might be an expression of hate. “And it cer-
tainly shouldn’t be the face of the community to people
driving by,” Lesley says. “Hatred expressed in any direc-
tion is not acceptable.”
Although the incident did not target Lesley, she says
people have removed political signs from her yard. The
signs include one for Black Lives Matter and others for
women candidates.
When a hate/bias crime or incident is reported in Eu-
gene, the city’s Human Rights and Neighborhood Involve-
ment department works with the Eugene Police Depart-
ment to document and track reports. However, EPD only
tracks crimes, not hate incidents.
In the weeks following Donald Trump’s election, HRNI
Manager Jennifer Lleras Van Der Haeghen says, “In terms
of what’s been reported to our office, we’ve seen steady
reporting since the election,” adding that she has seen re-
porting at “a higher rate than normal.”
The HRNI office monitors both incidents and crimes
and is equipped to handle bias complaints regardless of
whether the individual reporting knows if a crime or inci-
dent has occurred.
The office has a non-criminal incident reporting process
to assist people and keep track of activity like hate-related
speech that doesn’t necessarily violate any laws, accord-
ing to Van Der Haeghen, such as “those things that are not
criminal but, of course, impact how safe and welcomed
people feel in our community,” she says.
For the last four years, the HRNI has produced the an-
nual “Hate and Bias Report,” which contains numbers of
hate crimes and noncriminal incidents committed based on
sexual orientation, race, disability, mental health, national
origin and ethnicity.
In 2015, the Eugene Police Department received reports
of 49 hate crimes, compared to 47 hate crimes in 2014.
EPD reported that 25 of the 49 hate crimes were “related
to race,” according to the “Hate and Bias Report,” and 20
of those 25 “were committed against African-Americans.”
Van Der Haeghen says, “If you asked the average per-
son how many hate crimes happened,” 49 is unlikely to be
the answer.
When people contact HRNI to report a bias incident,
Van Der Haeghen says those reporting are in control of
the process. “We ask what their goal is, we take their story
down and let them know that we have a report and ask if
we can use their story to provide data for the report, and if
they agree, then we capture it that way,” she says.
After the incident is captured, HRNI can connect the
person reporting with appropriate agencies and nonprof-
its for any support necessary. The office also “coordinates
with other community groups to think about what kind of
community response would be best — especially when we
see trends,” she says.
Scott Vinje is a sergeant of a special investigations unit
with EPD and works with a team of three other officers
to track bias crimes, human trafficking, domestic terror-
ism and intelligence gathering, and he communicates the
number of bias crimes to HRNI.
Vinje reviews all bias crimes and then routes them to
the EPD public information officer, the police chief and
then to Van Der Haeghen.
“We have a white supremacy group here,” Sergeant
Vinje says. “As far as going out and seeking out and com-
mitting crimes — again compared to other communities
— we don’t have them going out and victimizing people
over and over again.”
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Ac-
tive Hate Groups map, an active chapter of the White Na-
tionalist group is located in the Lane County area. Spring-
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8
December 29, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com
field resident Jimmy Marr has also made headlines locally
for his advocacy of white supremacy.
After the presidential election, the SPLC released “Ten
Days After: Harassment and Intimidation in the Aftermath
of the Election,” which compiled a report of hate incidents
across the United States. In Oregon, 33 incidents were re-
ported. The publication documents “hate incident motiva-
tion” including anti-woman, anti-black, anti-immigrant,
anti-Muslim, anti-LGBT and anti-Semitism, threats of vio-
lence, racial slurs and graffiti spray painted on religious
buildings.
“Of the 867 hate incidents collected by the SPLC, 23
were anti-Trump,” according to “Ten Days After.”
Vinje says he has not noted a big rise in hate crime activ-
ity post election. Lt. Jennifer Bills with EPD agrees, saying
the numbers do not reflect an increase in hate crimes.
However, EPD doesn’t track bias incidents unless they
are connected with a crime. Recently, there was a report
of three people in a room using derogatory comments to-
wards one individual and another person was assaulted
during the same incident, according to Vinje.
Because a crime occurred and hate speech was report-
ed, EPD will forward the information to the HRNI office to
include in their annual hate and bias report. Had no assault
happened, EPD would not be required to track the deroga-
tory comments.
Van Der Haghen says all police departments are sup-
posed to track hate and bias crimes. “And what is striking
to me is there are local governments of similar size to us or
in some cases larger and smaller that are reporting zero to
five cases a year, and it’s hard to know when we are com-
paring apples to apples or apples to oranges about what’s
happening.”
She adds that EPD staff training has done well at being
able to identify hate and bias crimes.
Although the city and the EPD have an atypical report-
ing and tracking procedure, the U.S. Department of Justice
estimates that only 25 to 42 percent of hate crimes are re-
ported. “We know there are communities who feel less safe
going to police departments directly and we are happy to
be support for those folks,” Van Der Haeghen says.
Vinje adds, “I hope they feel very comfortable coming
to us and telling us that they are the victim of a bias crime.”