Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News (b)
Judy Shepard, who with her husband, Dennis, co-founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation to honor their 21-year-old son who was killed in a hate crime in Wyoming in 1998, echoed the sentiment. She said that a better understanding of the gay community—and all marginalized communities—could lead to better communication and reporting.
“There’s a level of ignorance about how to operate in a community you’re unfamiliar with,” Judy Shepard said. “How the tendency may be to actually insult them rather than help them. There are nuances involved in all marginalized communities. All afternoon we’ve been talking about that. And I hope they recognize it, because it’s crucial to the victim’s family, and the victims themselves.”
These are the conversations the Civil Rights Unit hoped would be a starting point toward better understanding among the varied attendees. Ron Reed, chief of the Civil Rights Unit at FBI Headquarters, said giving local police better tools to investigate hate crimes—and a better understanding of federal laws—can pay dividends, even if it’s just learning how to talk to victims.
“It’s not the victim’s job to know what to tell us,” Reed said. “It’s our job as law enforcement to know the right questions to ask to get to the bottom of it.”