Front door of Glen Burnie church damaged in what police are investigating as hate bias crime
An episcopal church in Glen Burnie was vandalized Monday morning when someone threw an object at its front door, according to the Anne Arundel County Police Department.
Shortly after 11 a.m., officers responded to the St. Alban’s Episcopal Church on 1st Avenue, where they found the wooden front door damaged, police wrote in a news release. Glass was discovered on the sidewalk beneath the door and around the front area, police said.
A representative from St. Alban’s did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Anne Arundel Police are investigating Monday’s vandalism as a hate bias incident, a designation for crimes involving religious buildings or in which someone is targeted because of their race, nationality, religion or sexual orientation.
In fiscal 2023, the county was awarded its first year of grant funding by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance to implement a Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Project.
Named after Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr., two men murdered in 1998 by anti-gay criminals and white supremacists, respectively, the Justice Department began the hate crimes program in 2021 as a way to help state and local law enforcement agencies support victims of such crimes.
Anne Arundel County was awarded $1.2 million for the project. Key partners noted in the award announcement include the Anne Arundel offices of the County Executive, Equity and Human Rights, Community Engagement and Constituent Services and ArundelStat, the performance management and data analytics team for the county government.
According to the Anne Arundel Hate Bias Incident Dashboard, a data spread prepared by ArundelStat, there have been 277 hatebias incidents in the county since 2019.
Between 2019 and 2022, the four years with complete data, Black people were the most targeted group, accounting for nearly 61% of hate bias incidents.
Sometimes, however, an incident that starts as a hate bias investigation does not end with a hate crime conviction.
In January, Jarren Omar Alexander pleaded guilty to three charges, including defacing religious property, after vandalizing two churches last year in what was described as a depressive episode.
Alexander, 24, was arrested nearly three weeks after Fowler United Methodist and St. Phillips Episcopal were vandalized on
consecutive days. Fowler United, a historically Black church, incurred more than $100,000 in damage and its pastor, Jerome Jones, hoped Alexander could receive the help he needed.
“We believe grace is not for some, but for all,” Jones said at a Jan. 24 hearing.
After Alexander’s father signaled his support for his
son and his ability to provide stable housing for him, a circuit court judge ordered Alexander to continue his mental health treatment and pay $1,000 in restitution to Fowler United. Alexander will also serve one year of supervised probation, court records show.
He was incarcerated after his arrest for 122 days.