Hate crimes: How they affect BIPOC and why they are on the riseHate crimes are on the rise against communities of color. In 2019, they reached their highest level in more than a decade. Here’s why.Just the FAQs, USA TODAY
- Fewer than 1 in 5 suspects of federal hate crime-related cases are prosecuted, according to the Justice Department.
- The state murder trial did not delve into issues of race, which some argued ‘whitewashed’ the case that many had called a modern-day lynching.
- Arbery’s family pushed strongly against plea deals for the men and pressured attorneys to prosecute the case.
The sweeping hate crime convictions of three white men nearly two years to the day since they chased and murdered a Black man running in their neighborhood finally acknowledges the racist motivations of what many have long called a modern-day lynching, experts say.”The first trial was whitewashed. It took race out of the situation, and that was a real harm,” said Justin Hansford, executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University. “It meant a lot to have this second verdict that expressed a particular acknowledgement of the fact that this was a hate crime and punishing it as such.”A jury Tuesday found father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan guilty of hate crimes and attempted kidnapping in the 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery. The three men are already serving life in prison on state convictions, and they now face an additional life sentence.The outcome marks a historic moment in Georgia history. Experts say the case also indicates the Justice Department’s increasingly active role in prosecuting crimes motivated by hate.Others, however, noted Arbery’s family played a key role in putting pressure on federal prosecutors to ensure the case went to trial. Fewer than 1 in 5 suspects of federal hate crime-related cases are prosecuted, according to Justice Department statistics, which undercount hate crimes because few jurisdictions report the data. Most cases are settled, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.Prosecutors with the Justice Department initially struck plea deals for the McMichaels — against the wishes of the family. But a judge rejected the deals weeks ago, and the trial moved forward.”What we got today, we wouldn’t have gotten today if it wasn’t for the fight the family put up,” said Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones. “We got a victory today, but there are so many families who don’t get victories.”The convictions should reinforce to families that they are right to advocate for prosecution, said Hansford, a professor at Howard University School of Law.”It would have been certainly a mistake or really just selling the family short to have gone the plea deal route,” he said. “The family was right to stand up and express the importance of the actual trial.”VERDICT: Ahmaud Arbery’s killers found guilty of federal hate crimes The case shows the Department of Justice is taking hate-related violence more seriously than in the past, said Heidi Beirich, chief strategy officer at the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.”It sends a signal to possible perpetrators that violence of this kind will not be tolerated and that it will be held to a higher level of punishment,” she said.In a press conference following the verdict, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the agency will continue to confront acts of hate and hold perpetrators accountable. Hate crimes “have a singular impact because of the terror and fear that they inflict on entire communities,” he said. He reflected on the Justice Department’s founding during Reconstruction, when it was “tasked with bringing to justice those who use terror and violence to prevent Black Americans from exercising their civil rights.”But it’s important to note the Justice Department typically only goes after cases it can win, as shown by its high conviction rate, said Ayesha Bell Hardaway, an associate professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law and co-director of the school’s Social Justice Institute. “Over the course of our history, working diligently to enforce those protections and those rights hasn’t always been a priority or hasn’t been perceived as the politically expedient thing to do,” Bell Hardaway said of the department. ‘We want 100% justice’: Judge rejects plea deal with man who killed Ahmaud ArberySeveral experts said the verdict is a watershed moment for the U.S. South.”I think it’s hard to overemphasize the significance of what happened today,” said local attorney Page Pate. “We had a mostly rural South Georgia jury deliberate for less than half a day in a three-defendant, multiple-count indictment return across the board guilty verdicts and elect as their foreperson the only Black male on the jury to deliver the verdict.”Pate, who has an office across from the courthouse in Brunswick, said his community has made a “180-degree turn” in two years, from a district attorney’s office that attempted to sweep the case under the rug to a new district attorney, a new police chief and convictions in state and federal court.”Even though I’m sitting in the same place I was two years ago when this happened, everything around me is different,” he said.The Rev. Al Sharpton called the outcome a “precedent setting verdict” for the region.”Even in the Deep South the feds will convict you of hate actions. I salute Ahmaud’s parents for forcing the trial,” Sharpton wrote on Twitter.MORE: Ex-prosecutor shielded men who killed, charges allegeLevin noted the trial took place “in the same area of the country that initially refused to convict in federal court Klan and other racist defendants.””This trial at this time in federal court is an important, symbolic and historic verdict because it’s showing that the South can vindicate not only victims but also the community of people who are still repulsed by this kind of modern-day lynching,” Levin said.Before Arbery’s death, Georgia had been one of only a handful of states without hate crimes legislation. Weeks after the killing, Georgia passed a hate crime law and repealed its citizen’s arrest statute. The state hate crime law imposes additional penalties for crimes motivated by a victim’s race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender or disability, and it also mandates data collection on hate crime incidents in Georgia.Margaret Huang, CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the conviction was an important step by the criminal justice system in addressing pervasive inequities in the treatment of Black and brown people, but she noted there isn’t always video documentation of a crime.”The fact that justice was done in this case does not deny the reality that countless Black men are targeted and killed for no reason other than the color of their skin,” Huang said. While the Justice Department welcomed the verdict, Garland said, “the only acceptable outcome in this manner would have been Mr. Arbery returning safely to his loved ones two years ago.””His family and his friends should be preparing to celebrate his 28th birthday later this spring, not mourning the second anniversary of his death tomorrow,” Garland said.
