MENU TITLE: Stopping Hate Crime: A Case History from the Sacramento Police Department .
Series: BJA Fact Sheet
Published: January 1997
6 pages
11,807 bytes

U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
Bureau of Justice Assistance

Nancy E. Gist, Director

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Stopping Hate Crime: A Case History From the
Sacramento Police Department 

Hate crime has struck fear in communities across
America. In 1995 alone, nearly 8,000 incidents
nationwide were reported to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI); 61 percent of those violent
acts were motivated by racial bias. This fact sheet
reports the experiences of one community's battle
to stop hate crime. It is based on a report
submitted to the Bureau of Justice Assistance by
the Sacramento Police Department as part of a grant
to fund hate crime prevention efforts. 

Hate Crime in Sacramento, California

Between July and October 1993, four arsons and
three attempted arsons committed by a
self-proclaimed white separatist became the subject
of intense media attention and public concern in
Sacramento, California. The first incident was the
attempted arson of a Jewish temple in July. A few
days later, the local office of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) was destroyed by fire. Neither organization
had received threats prior to the attacks and no
individual or organization claimed responsibility.
The investigation of the NAACP arson was exhaustive
but recovered little physical evidence that could
identify a suspect.

After failed arson attempts in August and
September, the connection between the crimes and
their motivation by hate became alarmingly clear to
investigators, the media, and residents of
Sacramento when the arsonist used Molotov cocktails
to ignite the offices of the Japanese American
Citizens League and the State Office of Fair
Employment and Housing as well as the home of an
Asian-American city councilman. Calling himself the
"Aryan Liberation Front," the arsonist telephoned
local television stations, claimed responsibility
for the arsons -- including the attempted arson of
the Jewish temple and the burning of the NAACP
offices -- and warned of further attacks.

The Need for a Multiagency Task Force

By early October 1993, media coverage of the
arsonist had stirred widespread public fear,
putting intense pressure on local, State, and
Federal officials to stop the burnings. An informal
team of investigators was formed following the
first incidents (comprising detectives and patrol
officers from the Sacramento Police Department, one
FBI agent, lab technicians from the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), and arson
investigators from the Sacramento Fire Department),
but it lacked the resources and strategic direction
to respond aggressively to the escalating
situation.

As the seriousness of the crimes became clear in
the second wave of arsons, local, State, and
Federal officials publicly committed to bringing
more resources to bear in the investigation. The
investigation now enjoyed the support of officials
from every level of government, but their
conflicting demands on local police investigators
began to fracture the investigation's focus. To be
effective, the Sacramento Police Department
concluded, those resources had to be funneled
through an official task force on hate crime
directed by a strong local command.

Command of the task force's tactical field
personnel was delegated to an operations lieutenant
within the Sacramento Police Department. He
designed a response plan in consultation with other
members of the task force that included
surveillance of potential targets and deployment of
tactical field teams to respond to new crimes and
fleeing suspects.

The task force developed a suspect profile of the
arsonist from locations he targeted, witness
statements, and recordings of his voice. In
November 1993, using the profile to conduct a
computer search of white supremacists in the
Sacramento area and information from a juvenile
hall inmate, Sacramento police located and arrested
an 18-year-old white male. Cloth found at the
suspect's home matched wicks recovered from several
arson crime scenes and analyzed in the FBI's crime
lab. The suspect was later convicted on all counts
of hate-motivated arson.

The quick arrest of a suspect once the task force
began a concerted operation under the leadership of
the Sacramento Police Department showed
conclusively that the department's partnership with
Federal agencies on or supporting the task force
dramatically improved its ability to investigate
hate crime. The search for a suspect benefited
greatly from having immediate access to the
Nation's most sophisticated crime laboratories and
databases. Federal assistance has also
significantly enhanced the Sacramento Police
Department's monitoring of hate crime suspects --
an important new law enforcement tool for local
investigators that will prevent hate crime in the
future.

Recommendations to Other Communities Fighting Hate
Crime

The pitfalls and successes of investigating hate
crime experienced by Sacramento police
investigators and their Federal, State, and local
task force partners are common to law enforcement
agencies across the Nation. The following
recommendations are offered by the Sacramento
Police Department in the hope that they will help
law enforcement agencies and the communities they
serve respond more forcefully to hate crime and use
every resource at their disposal to prevent its
occurrence.  

o Train every patrol officer in the department to
recognize hate crime. Patrol officers must
understand and support a department's policies on
hate crime and know how to respond when hate crime
occurs.

o Establish a multiagency task force in areas where
hate crime occurs and give it the full support of
every elected official and law enforcement agency
involved in the investigation and prosecution of
hate crime. With more experienced personnel and
dedicated equipment, a task force can investigate
incidents and leads more quickly than can a team
assembled ad hoc. It can deploy more tactical units
to protect potential targets of attacks and
implement strategies to stop perpetrators of hate
crime before they strike again.

o Seek out every source of State and Federal law
enforcement assistance in your community and make
it available to the task force. In Sacramento, the
strong commitment made by local, State, and Federal
agencies in 1993 to collaborate on hate crime
prevention has been the foundation of that
community's aggressive response to hate crime. For
example:  

o The Sacramento Police Department used a $100,000
grant from the Bureau of Justice Assistance to
deploy a sophisticated vehicle that permits close
yet covert surveillance of hate crime suspects. The
department also purchased a geographical
information system with BJA grant money that has
become an indispensable visual aid for tactical
commanders and their personnel. Task force
investigators use the system to target locations
and select areas of responsibility.

o The Federal Bureau of Investigation made
significant contributions to the 1993 Sacramento
investigation by canvassing crime scene areas for
witnesses, conducting out-of-town and out-of-State
interviews, providing technical assistance on
tracing telephone calls and acquiring other
telephone information, and analyzing physical
evidence in the FBI laboratory. 

o The office of the California Attorney General
analyzed the Sacramento arsons using a computer
program and provided the task force with names of
possible suspects. 

o DOJ investigators supporting the Sacramento task
force conducted out-of-State interviews and
monitored calls made by the arsonist to local
television stations.

o The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
contributed expert arson investigators to the task
force, who examined arson scenes, collected
evidence, and conducted state-of-the-art laboratory
analysis. 

o Encourage the participation of the community in
the investigation. Hate crimes outrage community
members as few events can. Used constructively, the
desire of community- and neighborhood-based groups
to apprehend the perpetrators of hate crime can be
a powerful asset for law enforcement. Volunteers in
Sacramento donated their time and resources to
investigate suspicious activity, control rumors,
and post an award for information on the case.  

o Implement a tactical deployment plan immediately
once investigators believe a suspect or
organization will continue to commit hate crimes.
The plan's most important objectives should be to
identify possible suspects, prevent further crime,
and apprehend the individual or group during an
overt criminal act.

o Protect the task force's investigative resources
from intrusion by high-level personnel who are not
leading the investigation. All input into an
investigation from other agencies should flow
through the task force coordinator. Dedicate
alternative resources to investigating questionable
leads.

o Maintain the same tactical personnel on the task
force. The principal difficulty reported by the
tactical commander of the task force in Sacramento
was the time and energy he was forced to devote to
daily briefings of newly assigned personnel. The
constant changing of personnel also hurt the
investigation by diminishing officers' insight into
the suspect's behavior.    

o Ensure that firefighters make every effort to
protect an arson's point of origin. The loss of
evidence in the NAACP fire prompted the Sacramento
Police Department to establish protocols with the
Sacramento Fire Department to preserve future arson
crime scenes for inspection by its arson
investigators, the State fire marshal, and ATF
arson experts. 

o Instruct officers arriving at the scene of a hate
crime to conduct an immediate search for victims
and witnesses to the crime. The quality of
information collected during the early stages of an
investigation will greatly aid or hinder the
success of followup investigations.

o Select an individual to lead the task force who,
in addition to being a superior tactical commander,
is comfortable working with the media and sensitive
to the concerns of community members most
threatened by hate violence.

o Use community programs to raise public awareness
of hate crime and the individuals who commit it.
Presentations to youth can help them understand
when they are victims of hate crime and when they
are engaging in criminal acts.

For More Information

Publications and information on hate crime and
community law enforcement partnerships are
available from the Bureau of Justice Assistance. To
order them or to find out about BJA-funded
programs, contact these offices:

Bureau of Justice Assistance Clearinghouse 

P.O. Box 6000 
Rockville, MD 20849-6000
Tel: 1-800-688-4252
Fax: 301-251-5212
World Wide Web: http://www.ncjrs.org

Clearinghouse staff are available Monday through
Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. eastern time. Ask them
to place you on the BJA mailing list. 

Department of Justice Response Center: 
1-800-421-6770 or 202-307-1480 

Response Center staff are available Monday through
Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. eastern time.

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FS 000161
January 1997 

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