Community Conversation on Hate Crimes

In the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia

FB-ISAO had the privilege of hosting a “Community Conversation” on Hate Crimes in DC and Northern Virginia on 27 August 2020. The recording of the webinar can be accessed here.

The community conversation portion was part III of a 3-part series hosted by the FBI’s Washington, DC field office, InfraGardNCR, and FB-ISAO. The panelists for the community conversation represented a wide range of communities:

• Luis Aguilar, CASA
• Sheila Alexander-Reid, District of Columbia Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs
• Vicki Fishman, Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington
• Rizwan Jaka, All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS)
• Julius Spain, Sr., NAACP

Hate crimes are generally under-reported – the goal of the series was to raise awareness of hate crimes and to build connections with local organizations and people who may be a witness or a victim of a hate crime or who could encourage victims/witnesses to reach out to the FBI.

The Faith-Based Information Sharing and Analysis Organization is an all-faith, all-hazard information sharing organization. That means we welcome members of all faiths to enter into a trusted environment where they can share threat and security-related information for the purpose of preventing, protecting against, responding to, and recovering from all hostile acts. Hate crimes fall under hostile acts. Faith-based organizations, by their very existence stand for something – a shared belief. That belief may invite others to target them. In fact, from a 2018 hate crimes statistics report published by the FBI, hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,550 offenses reported by law enforcement – many of those reported hate crimes occurred at houses of worship. It is widely believed, among law enforcement professionals, that hate crimes are under-reported. A key discussion point was to help each other understand how we can collectively do a better job of supporting communities that experience hate crimes. FB-ISAO encourages our members to report all incidents – including hate crimes – against their facilities or people. Read more about incident reporting. If you’re targeted for your gender, gender identity, race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or disability, that’s potentially a hate crime. The best way to protect against hate crimes is by enlisting everyone’s help – the community and law enforcement.

Thank you to the InfraGardNCR and the FBI for co-hosting this important discussion.