New Police Training Video Released on Reporting and Investigation of Hate Crimes

By Greg deGiere, Civil Rights Advocate, The Arc of California

The California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) has released a new police training video on reporting and investigating hate crimes. Please consider sharing the video with your local law enforcement agencies. Besides encouraging them to use the video to train their officers on the new hate crime laws we succeeded in passing last year with AB 449 by Assemblymember Phil Ting, this might be an opportunity to establish a relationship with them, particularly with the hate crime coordinators that some agencies have designated recently. Those relationships could be very useful when members of the disability community are victimized by hate crimes.

Senior groups especially may want to remind them that disabilities caused by aging, illnesses and/or injuries are covered by the hate crime laws, specifically Penal Code Sections 422.55(a)(1) and 422.56(b). A lot of people, even officers, don’t know that.

The POST video features both victims of hate crimes and police officers stressing the new legal requirements and importance of responding to reports of possible hate crimes.

Thanks to AB 449 (Ting), every law enforcement agency must adopt a hate crime policy guiding officers’ professional conduct on hate crimes.