Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) State Crime News
The Director has long stood “shoulder to shoulder” with law enforcement, but said when those charged with protecting people commit criminal acts it’s particularly egregious.
“It’s a discredit to those scores and scores of brave men and women who do the job the right way, each and every day,” Wray said. “When law enforcement or corrections officers operate as though they’re above the law, they’re not just depriving victims of their civil rights; they’re degrading the public’s trust in everyone else in law enforcement, and in our criminal justice system as a whole, one violation at a time.”
There were more hate crimes charges last year than in any year since turn of century, the Director said. In the case examples he provided, Wray described outcomes that showed justice ultimately prevailing.
The shooter in the Tops Supermarket case received multiple life sentences and still faces 27 federal charges, including 13 for hate crimes. The six police officers in Mississippi who mercilessly tortured two men and then tried to cover it up pleaded guilty last August amid a mountain of evidence collected in the color-of-law investigation by our Jackson Division. Their sentences, handed down just a few weeks ago, range from 10 to 40 years. FBI Birmingham’s investigation of the corrections officer who beat a 60-year-old inmate to death uncovered a trail of evidence that compelled him to plead guilty last December. He is now behind bars in a federal prisoner serving a seven-year sentence.
“Hate crimes are messenger crimes. They intend to incite terror,” Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, said in her remarks. “Our prosecutions are sending a louder message that hate crimes will not be tolerated.”
“No one is above the law,” Wray said, “And the FBI will continue investigating color-of-law abuses as one of our most important responsibilities.”