City Council adopts resolution supporting passage of 'Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act'

On August 12, 2016, Khalid Jabara was killed on his doorstep in Tulsa, Oklahoma. One year later, on the same day, Heather Heyer was killed during a protest in Charlottesville, Virginia. Both killings, motivated by white supremacy, were prosecuted as hate crimes, yet neither were reported in official FBI hate crimes statistics.



This week, the Council voted to adopt a resolution supporting the passage of Congressional Bill S. 2043, “Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act.” The bill seeks to improve data collection on hate crimes and establish mechanisms to support local law enforcement to identify and investigate such crimes.



The Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act will support the implementation of and training for the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), the latest crime reporting standard, by issuing grants to state and local law enforcement agencies without it in order to improve the quality of the hate crimes data collected by the federal government.



The bill will also provide grants to states to establish hate crime hotlines and allow judges to require individuals convicted under federal hate crime laws to undergo community service centered on the impacted community.



The Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act is supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Arab American Institute, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Disability Rights Network, and many other organizations.