Lawmaker: Tracking Hate Crimes To Better Prevent Them

By Shaun Boyd

DENVER (CBS4)- A CBS4 story prompted one state lawmaker to bring a bill to state Capitol that is aimed at better tracking hate crimes in Colorado.

Last summer, CBS4 interviewed Jacqueline Fitzpatrick after she was attacked on South Broadway while waiting for a cab.

"I just don't think you should get away with hitting a girl, running away and calling people racial slurs," Fitzpatrick, who is African American, told CBS4.

Initially, Denver police didn't view the attack as a hate crime.

"And they actually made an excuse. They said, 'Oh well, he didn't mean that and he was drunk.' No, we're not making up excuses for a guy beating up a woman and calling her the "n" word," says Rep. Joe Salazar, a Democrat representing Thornton.

He says he called the police chief to demand an explanation. The Denver District Attorney's Office ended up charging Christopher Derby with a bias-motivated crime that he pleaded guilty to in court.

Salazar is now carrying a bill that would require the division of criminal justice to begin reviewing police reports of hate crimes to determine if they're being accurately reported.

He believes the policies of the Trump Administration have led to an increase in hate crimes.

"It was as a result of the rhetoric of this administration and the increase we saw across the nation that I said to myself 'Oh, I wonder how we track it' and then that's when I found out that tracking was not part of the statute so I said to myself 'This is something we need.'We're in a day in age in 2017 where no one should be getting a pass for engaging in hate crimes," said Salazar.

The most recent data on hate crimes in Colorado is from 2015. Police agencies reported 107 hate crimes to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, that's up 12 percent over the previous year.

Shaun Boyd is CBS4's political specialist. She's a veteran reporter with more than 25 years of experience. Follow her on Twitter @cbs4shaun.