In these strained times, we have accumulated a raft of data – going back 25 years – attempting to assess trends, percentages and levels of antipathy toward victims, trying to track shifts in personal motivation for both personal and property crimes, adding new categories of “hate” annually to touch up our ever-lengthening list of factional targets.
Although not adding anything to prosecutorial discretion and arguably duplicative, we have extended the standard scienter requirement, or mens rea, or intent part of crime, and identified some crimes now as “hate crimes.” Putting aside for a moment the value of the distinction, completeness of data aggregation, and whether the process of adding new factions advances the larger goal – a more peaceful and unified society – a glaring gap exists in the data. Why no one has called it out is a mystery.
What is the gap? In all the data annually reported by the FBI, describing various motivations for the mental state we have now called “hatred,” the “hatred” motivation appears nowhere as a basis for a continuing spike in personal attacks against America’s law enforcement community. Nowhere are these severe, proliferating, unjustified and often fatal attacks described as “hate crimes.” Why not?
Arguably, the motivation is hard to assess with accuracy in many cases – but not in the case of ambushed police officers. Is the omission just an oversight? Is the data not viewed as comparable or relevant? Can the reason be political? I hope not. In a time when the national percentage of crimes targeting police is sharply rising, now annually at triple digits; knowing these crimes can be neither accidental nor motivated by property, why do we overlook unprovoked attacks against police in national “hate crime” data? Why not assess as “hate crimes” spiking attacks against officers? Where is that category of “hate crime?” Targeting the badge is no different from targeting any other identifier.
Perhaps, the missing category is an omission; no one thought about it. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it is omitted because police are expected to “take it,” accept that becoming victims of “hate crime” is just “part of the job,” the “new normal.” But why should the Obama Administration not believe attacks on police are motivated by hate, and thus worthy of annual tabulation? My guess is that the motivation is recognized privately, not discussed publicly.
The spike in anti-police violence is clearly the result of recurring, often inaccurate, incomplete and counter-productive anti-police narratives, each in their own way encouraging disrespect and recrimination of police officers. Accordingly, the present climate is one of distrust, doubting the innate fairness and a sworn oath of peace officers to uphold their public duty. From these recriminations, justifications for violence emerge, and more officers are then attacked. This vicious cycle remains unbroken at this point – tragic and avoidable, which is what makes these statistics alarming.
Let me pause and roll out the real numbers, real percentages of increased “hate” crime. The past several years have been instructive. In the latest FBI Hate Crime Statistics report, which contains 2015 data, more than 14,997 law enforcement agencies were surveyed. On the numbers, 59.2 percent of victims were perceived to have been targets of crime based on their race, ethnicity or ancestry; 19.7 percent for religion; 17.7 percent for sexual orientation; 1.7 percent for gender identity; 1.2 percent for disability; and 0.4 percent for gender. How these motivations were assessed is secondary, but one-sixth of the crimes involved property, mostly vandalism. New this year, further factionalizing this process, are seven religious anti-bias categories – anti-Buddhist, anti-Eastern Orthodox, anti-Hindu, anti-Jehovah’s Witness, anti-Mormon, anti-other Christian, anti-Sikh, and anti-Arab.
Still, if we are to go down this road, describing crimes by their anti-factional content, where were the percentages showing increased anti-police “hate crime?’ Answer: Nowhere in the official numbers. So, let me introduce the data, and suggest that this category of “the crime” may be worth adding next year. At least if the anecdotal and state-by-state data continue to show a steady increase of violence against police.
According to leading law enforcement authorities, as of November of this year … “the number of police officers gunned down has increased 167% this year.” That officially makes 2015 the “deadliest year for such attacks, matching 2014.” In 2015, just under four dozen police officers were shot and killed in ambushes, says the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, with 115 killed in the line of duty, a 15 percent increase over 2014. So, are we really understanding the “balance of hatred” that has been – and continues to be – fomented in this country? Are we thinking hard about how to methodically, consciously and universally lower these numbers?
Crimes motivated by personal hatred, prejudice or bias are anathema in any society premised on tolerating differing views, religions, life styles and pluralism. But if we are to be honest about this drift toward crimes motivated by senseless, tragic and indefensible bias, let us get the whole story out.
Let us include the percentages of crimes now directed against law enforcement – a shocking rise. These are the most intolerable of “hate crimes,” a group knowingly committed against the people who, at daily personal risk, protect this fragile democracy; who wake and work, strive and struggle to protect the rest of us. Today forward, how about we rededicate ourselves to stopping all hate crime, not least crimes against our protectors. When the numbers roll in next year, let us hope “hate crimes” against all Americans – including those who protect us, the irreplaceable “thin blue line” – are down, and that these reductions are recorded. That is honesty. We owe it to our law enforcement officers, and to ourselves.
Robert Charles is a former US Navy Intelligence Officer; he served in the Reagan and Bush 41 White Houses, led congressional oversight investigations of Justice and Defense 1995-1999, and served as Assistant Secretary of State under George W. Bush and Colin Powell. He writes regularly on national security and legal issues.