Travis County Commissioners Court
January 17, 2012 (Agenda)
Item 11
11.
receive briefing on activities of the Austin/Travis County hate crimes task force and take appropriate action.
good morning.
>> > it talk -- I'm roger jeffreys, county executive for justice and public safety, we are here this morning to give you an update on the Austin Travis County hate crimes task force here with the county attorney david escamilla, Karen gross who is head of the anti-defamation league.
we came to you all about last fall after they completed I think their third task force meeting, her about to come on their fourth and wanted to give you an update and then extend an invitation.
I'm going to ask Karen and david to --
>> sure.
>> this one -- marks basically the one year anniversary of the launch of this initiative.
we're going to be, looking at prevention, response, restoration, looking at how we are presenting this through education, we have really exciting proactive programming that we're going to be discussing at our next task force meeting this coming Thursday.
there's -- there's the prevention component of this initiative, there's the response component.
which has involved ongoing trainings with the Austin police department.
really, one of the things that I think is -- is most significant about the outcomes thus far of this initiative is that we have trained over 300 Austin police department officers over the course of this year.
on what the hate crime law is, what are the bias indicators of a hate crime, how do you properly report these crimes in your police report.
they are looking at also the data, we have been doing a lot more work trying to aggregate local data on hate crimes.
there's another component of this work which is restoration.
and we're actually exploring something called restorative justice, we have held our first community focus group past Saturday with the victim of the hate crimes, process intended to serve as a healing conversation for these victims and also an opportunity for us to explore what some of the breakdowns in the systems might have been and how we can improve them.
so a lot of content is going to be discussed.
this coming Thursday, a lot of action items for approval and dialogues about, you know, how to introduce more of these restorative justice conversations in our community.
there's just a lot of substantive work happening.
we are also going to be joined by the newly appointed u.s.
attorney, robert pitman at this coming meeting, great to have this perspective.
Karen mentioned coming up on a one year anniversary, also another anniversary coming up, a two-year anniversary of what gave cause to our initiative, that was a violent hate crime incident downtown.
near city hall.
I'm very pleased with the response that we've had in the last year, Karen said there's been very much activity, a lot of education, I think already some institutional redirections maybe I will say that have taken place.
again, when this first occurred in the initiative -- when -- when Karen first came to us, with the
>> [indiscernible] initiative, came to the community justice council, the city of Austin had already joined in and were supported by a number of individual city council members.
we have -- we have great hope, plenty of work still to do, but great hope on education, understanding what the obstacles might be to successfully identifying dealing with and prosecuting hate crimes, but we still have, as I say, work to go, we would like to enlist the -- the Commissioners court more formally in this endeavor.
>> we are asking for everyone if you would like, up to two of you to volunteer to participate on the hate crime task force.
we talked about this last fall I think with you a little bit.
I know last week you were considering assignments for committees and boards and you were going to finalize your -- your list I guess today, it's item no.
24, and so we are asking if you would like to, to take that opportunity to -- to appoint one or two members to participate in going forward, the next meeting again is Thursday, right, at 330 to 5:30, 721 barton springs.
>> the meetings are -- they are three times a year, we try really hard to let you know really far in advance to get on your calendar, the idea is that organizations are represented by both executive leadership and people who are kind of implementing the vision, so -- so we -- we care a lot about having key leaders at the table and then those who might be involved with the execution.
>> mr. Reeferseed you are distracting me with that sign.
without that sign I will call you, with that sign I won't.
what are your comments?
>> I wanted to ask if this hate crime task force would have anything to do with the hate crime I experienced I'm a white person.
it happens to us, too.
I was standing there holding my signs on new year's day on sixth street, somebody out of the blue almost knocked me out and -- I want to thank the police, though.
they were they were there, stupidly I stayed later than they did.
they were behind me, protecting me, then they left for some reason.
people were getting more drunk or whatever and I -- I was assaulted.
almost knocked out.
and -- and took me literally over three and a half hours trying to find my car.
the most recent brain damage to me personally, I consider that a hate crime.
but I'm completely against this hog wash -- idea that we -- that we somehow make laws about what people think and -- and punish them and it's right out of 1984.
it's counter productive.
it's yet another example in my mind of do gooderrism.
I'm a survivor, literally.
days ago.
of a hate crime.
but I'm not down here saying well we've got to make more rules for more people, we don't like what they have to say.
you know, no that's not what the first amend is about.
that's not whats protecting our country from each other.
the violent crime done to me, but I don't -- I consider it a hate crime.
but I don't think that was the issue.
if the police were there and they would have -- they would have -- they would have -- they would have -- have prosecuted that person from assaulting me with or without the hate.
I don't think that's necessary.
I think that it's distracting and time wasting and -- and so any -- any hate crime I'm against it.
>> thank you very much.
>> thanks.
>> let me just respond.
I'm sorry for what happened to you.
I'm hoping that you followed up with the police and did report a crime.
and then in their investigation they can determine whether that can be classified as a hate crime and further upon finding the suspects and moving toward some type of prosecution.
secondly you misunderstand and misconstrue really what we are here about to do.
we are not asking the Commissioners court to create any rules or create any hate crime.
hate crime statute exists, we are about to hit our 10 year anniversary, the Texas legislature has passed almost 10 years ago a hate crimes law.
it is law today.
I'm sworn under my oath of office to -- people of the united states.
if you have issues about whether we should have a hate crimes law, that's something that's taken a few streets down over at the capital.
right now it is the law of the land.
as long as there were -- I personally have --
>> [indiscernible] have that it be enforced.
>> so you are looking for two volunteers from the Commissioners court at this time?
>> yes.
>> yes, sir.
>> judge, I will be the first.
>> I will be the second.
>> and I have been attending and will continue to attend, so it looks like we have to post them.
>> there's only three.
>> three.
>> we've three.
>> oh, okay.
>> yeah, you have to post it if there are three.
we have avoided I don't think we have that same situation with the city council.
>> would that be an issue for you all if we would have to post them.
>> I think so.
it's not a public meeting.
we don't invite the press because we want there to be a safe space for people to dialogue openly.
>> > it has been very frank dialogue in these meetings, I'm happy to report.
>> yeah.
>> we will get you two names real soon.
>> okay.
>> and --
>> hoping to get those names today, I take it.
>> when -- on your time line,.
>> next Tuesday soon enough.
>> before then you can have official -- there's no deadline, whenever the court would seek to do it is fine.
one thing to -- to express is when the hate crimes was being discussed there was -- in the Texas legislature, about, you know, really is any assaultive crime a hate crime.
and in some definitions, yes, any assaultive crime is.
but we're talking about here crimes that are motivated by someone's race, religion, sexual orientation, and the statistics indicate shockingly that the community has that crime perpetrated against them for their class in the higher percentage is -- is folks who are jewish.
even in Travis County.
and I find that amazing.
that is the statistic that I learned from attending these meetings, I was shocked by that.
>> I have a placed a large asterisk on this item.
on January 24th we will get you two names.
>> thank you.
>> appreciate your outstanding work.
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