By Sarah Langbein
For the Denver Police Department
Being a supervisor isn’t easy, especially when it comes to doling out
punishment for workplace violations.
One manager thought she had heard and seen it all. Employees had
lashed out at her verbally and even told her that she’d “get hers” after
disciplining them. But after punishing three employees in July 2010,
she was met with an anonymous racially-charged, threatening email.
“I have never experienced anything like that email,” said the
manager, an African American woman. “It’s one of those things
where you think to yourself, ‘Wow!’”
The email’s combination of racial epithets, derogatory terms directed
at women and threats of injury prompted her coworkers to call police.
“Within a half hour, they were over here,” she said of Denver police
detectives Randy Parsons and Tyrone Campbell, who make up half
of the department’s Bias-Motivated Crimes Unit.
“They just immediately made me feel calmer,” the victim said.
Beginning of the Bias-Motivated Crimes Unit
In 2005, the Colorado legislature changed the title of the state’s
Ethnic Intimidation Statute (Colorado Revised Statute 18-9-121) to
Bias-Motivated Crimes and amended it to include physical disability,
mental disability and sexual orientation. This change prompted the
Denver Police Department to develop a specialized unit to investigate
bias-motivated crimes, which – at face value – is what the manager’s
case appeared to be.
Detectives Parsons and Campbell, along with Sgt. TJ Blair and
Detective Ranjan Ford, have received special training in identifying
crimes motivated by bias – or more commonly known as hate crimes.
In 2006, the department started keeping track of this unique data and
began its community outreach. “If you don’t have a close tie to the
community, a lot of these crimes go unreported,” Sgt. Blair said.
Once the unit started meeting with community groups, they realized
how immense their task was. “Sadly, there has been a level of
acceptance in these communities,” Detective Campbell said. “It’s just
become a way of life, and it shouldn’t be that way.”
Rabbi Michael Feldheim, of the Yeshiva Toras Chaim in Denver, said
he had become somewhat accustomed to anti-Semitic behaviors
since joining the school nearly 40 years ago. But after recent cases,
in which some students were the subject of anti-Semitic slurs and
physically threatened with brass knuckles and shovels, and, in one
case, struck with a dart, Feldheim called on police. He said he could
not tolerate anyone intimidating or harming his students. “I could
sense it wasn’t just a plain police call,” Feldheim said of the work
done by the Bias-Motivated Crimes Unit. To him, the investigation
seemed “a lot more focused. “We have found that the police were
very proactive.”
As a result, a young man was arrested on menacing and ethnic
intimidation charges.
Not only does the Bias-Motivated Crimes Unit want to solve a case,
they understand the toll these crimes can take. “[Bias-motivated
crimes] can cause huge ripples throughout the community,” Sgt. Blair
said.
Justice served
Parsons and Campbell ultimately linked the supervisor’s threatening
email received to a jilted 46-year-old employee, through an IP
address. The man initially denied sending the email but later admitted
to it. But this isn’t where the investigation ended.
The detectives joke that part of their job is to act as the “thought
police.” This is because these detectives must be able to prove that
perpetrators were motivated by bias in order to charge a suspect with
a bias-motivated crime. “They are hard to prove,” Sgt. Blair said.
In this case, it was not enough that the angry employee’s email to his
supervisor was riddled with racially epithets.
For Parsons and Campbell to recommend bias-motivated crime
charges to the District Attorney’s Office, they had to prove that the
man sent the email to his boss to intimidate her because she was
African American. But that wasn’t the case. Ultimately, the
investigation found that the employee sent the email because he was
angry about his discipline, which is a crime – but not a hate crime.
“I can understand that,” his former boss said about learning the
difference between the two. “I was actually impressed,” she said of
their work. In the end, the man served time in jail for harassment.
Bias-motivated crime spree
In 2009, Denver saw a spike in bias-motivated crimes after a string of
highly publicized cases in the LoDo area. From the summer to early
fall, there were nearly 25 violent attacks that followed a pattern: the
type, style and victimology were all similar. An exhaustive
investigation outlined “anti-white” beatings perpetrated by black men
and youths with gang ties.
The investigation spanned more than 150 interviews and 5,000 pages
of reports kept in 7 five-inch binders. It resulted in 35 arrest warrants.
The importance
The Bias-Motivated Crimes Unit will tell you that their work creates a
fire within them. They say their victims are very similar to victims of
domestic violence, in that they emerge from these hate crimes
thinking: “Why me?” or “What did I do to deserve this?”
“There is no case that will engross you any more than having a true
victim,” Detective Campbell said of hate-crimes victims.
In such a short time, there work has received much applause in the
community.
“They are incredible,” said Shayna Alexander, the Anti-Defamation
League’s associate director of the Mountain States Region. “They’ve
established relationships and trust in the community.”
Alexander and her organization believe that the Bias-Motivated
Crimes Unit sends a message that “all community members are
welcome, everyone is safe and everybody belongs.” She believes
the unit’s efforts have also shown Denver and its citizens that
everyone is “equally valued and honored.” “The unit is staffed by
such extraordinary law enforcement officers,” Alexander said.
If you would like more information or need to speak with someone
about Bias-Motivated crimes please contact:
Denver Police Department 720-913-2000
Sergeant Tim Blair 720-913-6050
Lieutenant Matthew Murray 720-913-6192