In the News

By John Diedrich 

 

More than 100 members of Congress are asking the FBI to track hate crimes against Sikh, Hindu and Arab-Americans, according to a letter issued Thursday.

 

The move comes as members of the Sikh community push for the tracking in the aftermath of the August massacre at their temple in Oak Creek.

 

White supremacist Wade Michael Page killed six members of the Sikh community at the temple before police officers arrived and shot him. Page acted alone, according to an FBI investigation.

 

The Department of Justice has asked the FBI to track crimes against Sikhs and other minority groups, a Justice official said at a meeting in Oak Creek in December.

 

The letter from members of Congress was sent Thursday. Among those signing was Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.). The letter listed details of the Oak Creek shooting along with other attacks against the three groups.

 

"Unfortunately, there is a specific, demonstrated need for hate crime data for each of these three categories," the letter said. "We understand that, at present, the FBI does not collect specific information about these categories of hate violence, which may at times be recorded as anti-Muslim bias motivation. However, evidence suggests that all too many crimes are committed against these groups because of their religious or national identity, and not because they are confused with Muslims."

 

Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), whose signature is first on the letter, issued a news release saying adding the three groups to those tracked by the FBI would help raise public awareness and shape policy.

 

The FBI has been tracking and documenting hate crimes reported from federal, state and local law enforcement officials since 1991, and that provides the single best national snapshot of bias-motivated criminal activity in the U.S., Crowley said.

 

"The Act has also proven to be a powerful mechanism to confront bias-motivated criminal activity, increasing public awareness of the problem and sparking advancements in the response of the criminal justice system to hate violence - in part because in order to document hate crimes, officials are trained to identify and respond to them," Crowley's release said.