Pressure mounts for hate-crime bill
The physical assault of a 65year-old Asian American woman captured on video in Manhattan earlier this week is the latest high-profile example of rising anti-Asian violence that should prompt an overhaul of the Massachusetts hate crime statute, Attorney General Maura Healey and lawmakers said Wednesday.
Both Healey and her office’s criminal bureau deputy chief,
Asha White, pointed to the Monday attack during an event highlighting a reform bill they support.
If a similar assault happened in Massachusetts, White said, the updates contained in the bill would make it “far easier” for law enforcement to prosecute it
as a hate crime and avoid the case’s dismissal.
Healey and fellow bill authors Rep. Tram Nguyen of Andover and Sen. Adam Hinds of Pittsfield have been pushing the bill for for more than a month amid a growing wave of violence directed at Asian-American and Pacific Islander, or AAPI, communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Hate crimes are not just against individuals. These crimes are meant to terrorize entire communities. These are crimes against all of us,” Nguyen, an Andover Democrat and one of the lead authors of the bill, said during the event. “Hate crimes, much like terrorism, are designed to create fear and make people feel unsafe. We need to name them for what they are — hate crimes — and prosecute them to an added degree to tell the community that we see them, that they are valued, and that we won’t tolerate such violence and hate.”
Legislative leaders have not signaled any concrete plans to take up the proposal in either branch. The bills still await an assignment to a legislative committee for a public hearing and review.
Most committees have been in place since early in the 2021-2022 session under temporary rules. House and Senate negotiators agreed to a permanent joint committee structure last week, but they have yet to agree on a broader package of joint rules governing certain committee operations such as publication of votes.
Several other high-profile bills, such as wide-ranging climate legislation and a package aimed at stabilizing the state’s unemployment system, have passed in both branches this year after being prioritized by leaders.
Hinds said the House and Senate are early in the legislative cycle and said he expects the bill to wind up before the Judiciary Committee.
“We certainly will be pushing for an expedited consideration including moving a quick hearing, so we’re working on that now,” Hinds said.
Hinds later said in a statement to the News Service that sponsors “want to ensure there is an opportunity for public feedback through the hearings process.”
Healey’s office deferred to Hinds’s comments about the bill timeline, while Nguyen aide Tobin Abraham told the News Service that Rep. Tackey Chan, a fellow member of the House Asian Caucus, “has spoken with House leadership and they indicated that they welcomed our thoughts and ideas, while extending their sympathies for the entire Asian community.”
House Speaker Ronald Mariano’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the hate crimes statute reform bill, and Senate President Karen Spilka’s office said she “rejects bigotry of any kind and continues to be outspoken in condemning hateful acts across Massachusetts and the country.”
“With last week’s approval of the committee structure, the formal process of allocating and reviewing bills by respective committees will get underway in earnest,” a Spilka spokesperson said in a statement.
The legislation would combine
civil rights and hate crimes statutes into one section of law, codify several definitions the attorney general’s office says are critical to prosecuting hate crimes, impose stricter maximum sentences on more severe offenses, strengthen penalties for repeat offenders, and add gender and immigration status as protected classes.
Supporters of the reform said the current law has gaps that leave prosecutors at times unable to pursue more severe hate crimes charges.
“Based on our work, we know that our laws do not meet the moment, and that’s what this hate crimes legislation is seeking to achieve: giving us the tools to allow us to rid our communities of the kind of pernicious hate we see and to hold those accountable who need to be held accountable,” Healey said.
The Stop AAPI Hate reporting center tracked nearly 3,800 instances of hate, including verbal harassment and physical assault, directed at Asian Americans in the United States from March 19, 2020, to Feb. 28, 2021.
More than two-thirds of the reported incidents were directed at Asian-American women.
Nguyen, who was 5 years old when her family came to the United States as refugees from Vietnam, recounted a 2016 experience of racism she faced when she was practicing as a legal services attorney.
Nguyen and her client were standing outside the Suffolk County Probate and Family courthouse and speaking Vietnamese, she recalled, when a man bicycling past said to her, “get the [expletive] out of my country.”
“This is one of many such in
stances that have happened to me, and I know there are many other stories — far worse stories — out there,” Nguyen said.
“Unfortunately, anti-Asian stigma has only gotten worse within the last 12 months since the start of the COVID pandemic.”
She stressed, too, that despite the uptick aimed at AAPI individuals, hate crimes are not specific to Asian communities and affect people from a wide range of ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations and disability statuses.
Evelyn Dolan, a Black woman, shared during the event that she has faced racist verbal abuse for years from a neighbor who frequently referred to her and her family by slurs. Police at first did not help, Dolan said, but she later found relief with two higherup officers and Healey’s office.
“The message I would send out to anyone who’s going through this is do not give up. There are people out there who will help you,” Dolan said.
Like the case in New York City, White said Dolan’s situation could have been improved with an updated statute as laid out in the bill Healey’s office backs. Law enforcement might not have been able to respond to Dolan’s situation faster, he said, but they would have had more “tools” to do so.
“I certainly think it would make it easier because it would give law enforcement, police officers and assistant district attorneys, the tools to charge it far easier than they did before,” White said. “This is about giving law enforcement and individuals in Evelyn’s position the mechanism to go forward and make that complaint or allegation.”