Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on August 9, 2021

A Deerfield state representative posts a public service announcement on social media, encouraging people to loot and burn the homes of Black Lives Matter supporters.

A Farmington man puts up signs on his property condemning Blacks, immigrants, gay marriage and Massachusetts residents.

A man hands out anti-Semitic pamphlets in a parking lot at the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua.

And in New London, a man drives his red pickup truck around town with a life-sized fake skeleton attached to the front bumper and this message: BLM are terrorists. This one was too slow.

These are some of the potential hate crimes reported to the Civil Rights Unit at the Attorney Generals Office in the past year.

Hate is here, said Sean Locke, an assistant attorney general and the director of the 4-year-old unit. It is present, and we have a duty to speak out against it and fight against it.

The Civil Rights Unit received 44 complaints in 2018. That nearly doubled in 2019, to 81, then nearly doubled again in 2020 to 155.

The unit has gotten 89 complaints so far this year.

Complaints come from members of the public, law enforcement agencies and other organizations. While not every complaint leads to an investigation, they all are reviewed for potential violation of either the state law against discrimination (RSA 354-A) or the Civil Rights Act (RSA 354-B), Locke said.

Most complaints have not led to civil or criminal charges. In many cases, the First Amendment protections on free speech trump the harm that hate speech can inflict.

The Union Leader recently reviewed case files of alleged violations of the Civil Rights Act, obtained through a Right-to-Know request submitted to the Attorney Generals Office.

The files included complaints against lawmakers, neighbors, co-workers, strangers, even an editorial published in the New Hampshire Union Leader.

A New London man agreed to remove this fake skeleton and anti-BLM placard from his truck after speaking with an investigator from the Attorney Generals Office.

The burden of proof

The state Civil Rights Act reads: All persons have the right to engage in lawful activities and to exercise and enjoy the rights secured by the United States and New Hampshire Constitutions and the laws of the United States and New Hampshire without being subject to actual or threatened physical force or violence against them or any other person or by actual or threatened damage to or trespass on property when such actual or threatened conduct is motivated by race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, or disability.

To bring a successful case under the Civil Rights Act, Locke said, the state has to prove motive, which is usually not required in a criminal case.

Thats one of the bigger challenges that we face, because not everyone who commits a hate-motivated act is announcing why theyre doing something, Locke said.

Its not enough to say the person who is the victim or the target of the statement or the act felt as if it was hate-motivated, he said. You need the evidence to prove the defendant had that intention.

Prosecutors also have to prove the existence of a direct threat, Locke said. And thats not always present in a lot of these statements, where people might be upset about them, and might feel threatened by them, but we have to show that the speaker intended to threaten the person.

In 2019, Marc Bernier of Nashua was found guilty of violating the Civil Rights Act for repeatedly threatening to kill a patron at a Planet Fitness in Nashua after he learned the individual was transgender and had used the womens locker room to change, according to a statement from the AGs office.

Bernier, 60, was barred from contacting or approaching the victim and from entering the Planet Fitness location for a year. He also was fined $3,000, with all but $500 suspended for a year if he complied with the injunction.

There is a distinction between a hate crime and a hate incident, such as an offensive sign or a racial slur, Locke said. The hate is there, the hate is expressed, but its not something that would rise to the level a prosecutor could bring a criminal charge over, he said.

Among the other recent cases reviewed by the Civil Rights Unit:

A dispute between neighbors in Manchester that led to racial slurs.

The removal of a gay pride flag from a gazebo in Plymouth.

A report from a woman in North Hampton with a Black Lives Matter slogan that someone scrawled beneath it: because we need slaves.

Hate vs. free speech

The Civil Rights Unit has received a lot of complaints about the derogatory Farmington signs.

Locke has sent the same reply to everyone who filed a complaint, explaining that the First Amendment prevents the Attorney Generals Office, the town or any other government authority from ordering the landowner to remove the signs.

The state and federal constitutions, he wrote, provide broad protection for speech, including offensive speech and even hateful speech.

Its something he has to explain often.

State Rep. James Spillane of Deerfield was the subject of complaints to the Attorney Generals Office over this social media post last year. He took it down, telling investigators that he intended it to be tongue-in-cheek.

The incident that triggered the most complaints last year was a social media post by state Rep. James Spillane, R-Deerfield.

Public Service Announcement: If you see a BLM sign on a lawn its the same as having the porch light on for Halloween. Youre free to loot and burn that house, he wrote on Facebook.

According to case files, Spillane told investigators from the AGs office that the post was meant tongue in cheek.

Thats not how nearly 100 state residents who called for his resignation took it.

I am shaking as I write this, one person wrote in an email. I live in Rep. James Spillanes district, I am the mother of bi-racial children and grandchildren and I do not feel safe in my community. It is exactly this type of racist baiting that led to a kid showing up in Kenosha, Wisconsin and shooting innocent, unarmed people exercising their constitutional right to protest.

Spillane was summoned to a Sept. 11 interview at the Attorney Generals Office. In an email to Associate Attorney General James Boffetti after that meeting, Spillane said he had no intent whatsoever for this post to be taken seriously or cause or incite any harm to anyone.

Spillane told investigators he had submitted a statement about the incident to Republican leadership, but he said they advised not to release anything anywhere.

His unpublished statement read:

My post was intended to be tongue-in-cheek and show in the Aristotle method of Reductio ad Absurdum debate that the rioting and looting of businesses was tragic and thoughtless, and harmed individuals not corporations. As soon as I realized it didnt read as I intended it to read, I removed the post. I apologize that the wording of my post had an opposite effect than I intended, and caused some people concern or distress.

In an Oct. 9, 2020 letter, Locke told Spillane that investigators could not meet its burden to prove that he had meant the Facebook post to be a threat intended to interfere with the rights or lawful activities of its targets.

At this time, the Civil Rights Unit is suspending its investigation into your Facebook post. Should facts and circumstances change, however, the Civil Rights Unit will review new information and take whatever steps are appropriate, Locke wrote.

Spillane got in trouble again in January after another social media post generated outrage, this time a cartoon he posted on Parler that people complained was anti-Semitic. In a Jan. 29 letter to House Speaker Sherman Packard, Locke wrote that the Civil Rights Unit again could not meet its burden of proof to show that the post constituted a threat.

Spillane did not respond to several messages left last week.

A case on the Seacoast

Locke said his office works with law enforcement agencies and county attorneys to investigate cases and determine whether to proceed with civil, criminal or parallel tracks.

State law RSA 651-6, I(f) authorizes prosecutors to seek enhanced criminal penalties if a person was substantially motivated to commit the crime because of hostility towards the victims religion, race, creed, sexual orientation, national origin, sex, or gender identity.

Thats what Rockingham County prosecutors are seeking in a criminal case against John Doran of Seabrook.

The state filed both civil and criminal cases against Doran for allegedly shouting racial slurs and threatening a Black man from Washington, D.C., who stopped at a Seabrook gas station in July of 2020 after visiting Hampton Beach with his family.

Doran was indicted for criminal threatening with a deadly weapon, criminal threatening and simple assault.

Get back (n-word) or Ill f---ing burn you go back to Africa, Doran shouted, according to court records. The indictments allege Dorans actions were substantially motivated by (the victims) race.

In court documents, his lawyer contends that Doran was the victim, that the other driver spit at him and that the spitting was racially motivated. Doran displayed the gas nozzle after he was physically attacked and reasonably feared for his safety and well-being, the attorney wrote.

In the civil action, Rockingham County Superior Court in March found that Doran violated the Civil Rights Act. The court imposed a $5,000 civil penalty and barred him from contacting or approaching the victim or his family, under penalty of additional fines or incarceration.

The criminal case against Doran is pending.

Even if an incident doesnt rise to legal action, Locke said its critical for people to report such incidents. There may be things we can do to help protect the person, he said.

If local police are made aware of a bias incident, they might be able to prevent a future hate crime, he said.

The antidote to hate

Peggy Shukur, New England deputy regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said even if something is not charged as a hate crime, these are not victimless incidents.

Take the New London truck with the skeleton, for instance.

We want to think that we can be tolerant of other peoples opinions even if we dont agree with them, she said. But the message this person is sending is if I dont agree with you, you dont deserve to live.

Two years ago, the Attorney Generals Office released protocols for police agencies to handle hate crimes, bias incidents and civil rights violations. The Civil Rights Unit also is developing training for police officers to investigate such incidents, Locke said.

But having a Civil Rights Unit is not a panacea, he said.

There are obviously other steps beyond just bringing Civil Rights Act violations or hate crime charges that need to be taken to address hate in our communities, and to support those who are the targets of hate, Locke said. We pursue these complaints when we receive them, but its not going to prevent all the hate incidents that happen out there in the world.

Were not going to cure hate, he said.

The ADLs Shukur said the antidote to hate lies in the communitys response: good people who gather and speak up and speak out against it.

The community can gather and say we actually take this seriously and we want to make our community be a place where the majority of us are going to speak up and speak out when we see this kind of hate, because it brings us all down, she said.

Theres a lot of strength and comfort in knowing that the majority of your community is going to step up and speak out when you, as a member of a marginalized community, might be the target of something hateful.

See the article here:
Granite Hate: Complaints are on the rise across the state - The Union Leader

Category: Anti-Defamation League
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