Trone DoJ Inquiry
On November 14, 2019, Representative David Trone (MD-6) shared a Congressional Inquiry he was planning to send to the Department of Justice with his fellow House Members;
Five other Representatives signed on to the letter;
Navy veteran Gilbert R. Cisneros, Jr. (CA-39)
Alcee L. Hastings (FL-20)
National Guardsman Max Rose (NY-11)
Terri A. Sewell (AL-7)
Henri Cueller (TX-28)
On November 22, the Dear Colleague letter became a formal Congressional Inquiry and was sent to Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray. The letter read as follows;
Dear Attorney General Barr and Director Wray,
The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 provided funding and technical assistance to state, local, and tribal jurisdictions to help them more effectively investigate and prosecute hate crimes. A provision of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, known as The Soldiers Amendment, gave authorities an additional tool to protect our nation's service members and their families.
According to a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) report, hate crimes are up 17%.[1] We have reason to believe those numbers do not capture the extent of the problem, as hate crimes are vastly underreported by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.[2]
Our men and women in uniform protect us, and in turn, we should do everything we can to protect them and our military families. Two critical components of that protection are ensuring adequate guidance for local law enforcement to properly identify and investigate hate crimes as prescribed by 18 USC § 1389 and reliable, complete official tabulation of the scope of bias-motivated violence directed at service members and their families.
To that end, we ask that you provide responses to the following questions:
What actions have been taken to collect and report anti-military hate crime data?
What guidance has been provided by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI to law enforcement agencies responsible for prosecuting and processing 18 USC § 1389 complaints?
How have the DOJ and FBI informed the 4.8 million servicemembers[3] and their dependents protected by the law of their rights under this Act?
No member of our military should have to fear being the subject of hate or violence based on his or her military service. We have heard from service members who feel they cannot accurately gauge the extent of potential threats to themselves and their families without access to this data. I (we) thank you for your leadership on this and look forward to working with you to ensure all hate crimes are properly tracked and prosecuted.
Sincerely,
David Trone
Gilbert R. Cisneros, Jr.
Alcee L. Hastings
Max Rose
Terri A. Sewell
Henri Cueller
[1] US Fed. Bureau of Investigation, Hate Crime Statistics 2017 (Nov. 13, 2017)
[2] John Eligon, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/us/hate-crimes-fbi-2017.html
[3] Department of Defense (2017). 2017 Demographics: Profile of the Military Community. Retrieved from https://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2017-demographics-report.pdf
