TU: FBI hosts hate crimes seminar Thursday in Jacksonville

Link to article: https://www.jacksonville.com/news/20190319/fbi-hosts-hate-crimes-seminar-thursday-in-jacksonville

By Dan Scanlan

Less than a week after a self-proclaimed white supremacist killed 50 people during attacks on two Islamic mosques in New Zealand, The FBI in Jacksonville is hosting a Thursday community seminar called “Investigating Hate Crimes.”

As part of FBI Jacksonville’s UNITED initiative, special agents will answer questions about hate crimes as well as offering guidance on surviving an active shooter.

The seminar starts at 7 p.m. at the Wilson Center for the Arts at Florida State College at Jacksonville’s South Campus at 11901 Beach Blvd. Questions the FBI expects to hear include what constitutes a hate crime and when will the FBI investigate? It is open to the public.

“We encourage all law enforcement partners as well as community members and representatives of all cultural and social groups to join us,” regional FBI spokeswoman Amanda Warford Videll said. “The focus will be to provide clarification on what constitutes a federal hate crime and what the response can be by law enforcement as well as the processes of the investigation.”

The FBI defines a hate crime as a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity.

Friday’s shootings at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch were preceded by a manifesto sent to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s office and others minutes before they occurred, according to The Associated Press. Under arrest is 28-year-old white supremacist Brenton Harrison Tarrant, who showed no emotion when charged Saturday with murder. Tarrant also did a live-streamed video of his attack on the Al Noor mosque.

In another violent hate crime closer to home, American-born Omar Mateen, 29, of Fort Pierce gunned down 49 people in June 2016 at a gay nightclub in Orlando. Mateen had pledged allegiance to ISIS. The Pulse nightclub shooting was the deadliest in the United States and the nation’s worst terror attack since 9/11, authorities said.

Thursday’s discussion will include videos and discussion of a hate crime case study, with information for guests to bring home, Videll said. Guidance on surviving an active-shooter incident, like last year’s Parkland High School massacre in Broward County that killed 17, also is planned.

Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge Carlton Peeples, who leads the Criminal Branch of the 40-county FBI Jacksonville Division and its civil rights investigative program, will lead the seminar.

Dan Scanlan: (904) 359-4549