Pennsylvania representative working to strengthen state's ethnic intimidation law
A Pennsylvania legislator is working to strengthen the state's ethnic intimidation law, which prosecutors are considering charging Cody Balmer with, the man accused of setting fire to the Governor's Residence in Harrisburg.
Ethnic intimidation, which is Pennsylvania's version of a hate crime, occurs when someone commits another crime and is motivated in part or wholly by hatred toward that other group or individual's race, color, religion or national origin.
"So we have an ethnic intimidation statute, which we believe is inadequate to do the things that we believe our communities need to have in terms of tools to combat hatred, not just anti semitism, but racism, homophobia, xenophobia," said Representative Dan Frankel, who chairs the state's Jewish Legislative Caucus. "These are things that I think are kind of prevalent in what's taking place throughout the state of Pennsylvania, throughout our country."
He said there has been an epidemic of hate.
"Hate crimes against Jews have reached an epidemic proportion, but it is not exclusive to the Jewish community," he said.
In strengthening the statute, he said they plan to make sure all targeted groups are protected.
"We want to expand that and expand that to also include people because of their sexual orientation, gender identity expression, and people who are disabled," Frankel said. "So those are classes of people that aren't incorporated here, and we've seen acts of violence and harassment against those communities as well."
Law enforcement in PA is also not trained well enough in how to identify hate crimes, he said. The same goes he said for prosecutors who need to able to identify or prosecute hate crimes.
In strengthening the laws, lawmakers are also looking at potential increases in penalties and fines, he said, explaining it will drive prosecutors additional tools.
"A hate crime is meant to target an entire community and intimidate them," Frankel said. "So when the gunman at Tree of Life murdered 11 of our friends and neighbors, It was not just a crime of murder against those 11 individuals, It was a crime that was meant to send a message to the Jewish community that it was generally targeted, and that is why we need to call out hate crimes separately, and if, in fact, this incident against the governor, which seems to be headed towards the in the direction of a potential hate crime, it needs to be called out as that, and the perpetrator ought to be subject to additional penalties because of that motivating factor into the crime."
