Detroit Lakes, Minn. (KDLM) – Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-MN, questioned FBI Director Christopher Wray about the dramatic rise in hate crimes since the Hamas attack of Israel during a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
During the Dec. 5 hearing, Klobuchar told Wray the statistics across the board were on the rise.
“Reports show a 216% increase since Oct. 7 in requests for help and reported bias incidents against Muslims,” said Klobuchar. “Another report showed a 388% rise in anti-Semitic incidents since this time last year. We know the facts.”
She also described a string of recent alleged hate crimes to the director, and said these incidents should be shocking to everyone.
“In Vermont, a Palestinian student from Brown University, whose parents had him stay in the U.S. rather than returning home for safety reasons was shot along with two of his friends,” she said. “In New York, a woman was assaulted at Grand Central terminal and when confronted the assailant said it was because you are Jewish. In Brooklyn, a father and his 18-year-old son were allegedly assaulted by another parent for being Palestinian. And last week, three suspects were arrested for a 40-minute attach spree on Jewish New Yorkers. This is concerning for everyone, democrat, republican, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, anyone in this country.”
Klobuchar praised the director for his agency’s response to the 2017 Dar al-Farooq (DAF) Islamic Center bombing in Bloomington, which ultimately led to a conviction and 53-year-prison sentence for the perpetrator.
Wray said the FBI has enhanced their hate crimes posture nationally to make more resources available to their agents and they’ve implemented an outreach program to law enforcement and targeted groups to ensure they find hate crime cases that need to be found.
“We’ve elevated civil rights, especially, hate crimes to a national threat priority and that has been true for the last couple of years,” said Wray. “That brings with it more investigative resources of all shapes and sizes. Second, we’re trying to do a lot tp engage in outreach, both to law enforcement and the communities, because one thing we know about hate crimes is that they are chronically under reported. There are lots of reasons for that. But, trying to get better data, better fidelity of the data, allows us to track the trends better, but also to ensure that we are finding the cases that need to be pursued.”
Steps to report a hate crime begin by reporting the incident to a local law enforcement agency and following up with the case through the FBI’s web portal. For more information, check out the U.S. Department of Justice’s website.
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