Prosecutor's Office unveils anti-hate crime poster

Prosecutor's Office unveils anti-hate crime poster

by Nick Ardizzone - SGN Staff Writer A new poster giving tips on how to avoid and report hate crimes is being unveiled today by the King County Prosecutor's Office. The poster is part of the effort to crack down on the amount of anti-Gay harassment occurring in and around Capitol Hill. The Seattle Gay News spoke to King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg about their push to protect and educate the community. "The idea for this really came about a couple of months ago," Satterberg said. "We were concerned - as many people were - about what seemed to be an unusual number of reports of hate crimes that were occurring in the Capital Hill area." Satterberg explained how the Prosecutor's Office hopes the "eye-catching" poster (which appears on Page 2 of this week's SGN) will open communication between the community and its patrol officers. "It's really about helping to shape community response to hate crimes, and you do that first by building trust. We want to ask witness and victims to call 911 and report what they see, but in order to ask people to do that, you have to pledge that you will respond, and that your response will be swift and serious & we want to make the cases because it's about building the kind of community that doesn't tolerate hate crimes, bullies, and people coming from outside the neighborhood to come intimidate the people who live there." To send a strong message to offenders, Satterberg said, all incidents need to be reported. The clear language on the poster, which is mirrored on a set of cards the Prosecutor's Office plans to distribute, aims to simplify the reporting process for victims and witnesses. "The most important thing for us is that people & if they are threatened or feel intimidated by somebody, they don't have to sit there and decide, 'does this violate Washington's law?' We'll make that call later," he assured. "We want them to call 911 and report it. We want them to remember, as best they can, the words that were used by the bully, and obviously if there's an assault or property damage that occurs after that, that's something that we can use to add additional charges." "We want these posters to be out there to have people talking about it, and hopefully to encourage people to call by showing that we care, that we will respond to these and we take these crimes seriously," he said. The posters and cards, fully funded by the Prosecutor's Office, will be distributed in bars and coffeeshops primarily in Capital Hill, but also at branching locations throughout King County. Witnesses of anti-Gay incidents are asked to report any criminal behavior they see, even if they don't know the victim or aren't sure about the specifics of the situation. "We want to encourage people to call if they witness such an event and worry about putting the case together later. If we don't get the call made, we can never put the case together," Satterberg said. The posters and cards are the Prosecutor's Office's first step at attempting to quell harassment in the community, but not all responsibility rests with alert citizens. "All I want to do is increase awareness and increase the trust between law enforcement and the people who live in Capitol Hill so they won't hesitate to pick up the phone and call 911 when they see something happening in their neighborhood & I think it's a start, but it's not the end of our efforts," Satterberg explained. "The other part of our effort involves working with the police department to make sure the officers that respond are thinking about what we need to put the case together and are doing that with sensitivity and seriousness. "As part of our effort, we'll be working with the Seattle Police Department to make sure the patrol officers' response is as good as it can be, because these cases are made or lost, really, at the patrol officer level," he continued. "We'll be putting together a roll call video to help educate patrol officers about out state law and to make sure that they think about malicious harassment when they show up at a scene and they start interviewing witnesses & and to make sure the officers accurately record any slurs that were used or any threats that were used." "A few prosecutions, I think, can do a lot to get the word out among the people who might think it is some sort of great sport to come and harass people," he said. While the poster campaign was spurred by November's spike in anti-Gay crime reports, Satterberg and the Prosecutor's Office are thinking of long-term solutions for the community. "I don't want to live in a place where hate crimes are tolerated, or where people are told to expect [hate crimes]," he said. "We want to stamp them out, and I think we can stamp them out if we get the call and we put the case together. We can send these people away for some serious time. I think that we could do a lot to dissuade those who might be inclined to pick on other people, and they'll do something else with their Friday and Saturday nights."