MATTHEW SHEPARD

A federal lawsuit alleges a high-ranking white sheriff's deputy in Wyoming subjected a Black subordinate to years of racist name-calling and torment and finally “sham” discipline that led him to quit.

The Department of Justice today announced that the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) will award more than $21 million to investigate and prosecute hate crimes and assist hate crime victims. The Act also empowers the department to prosecute hate crimes committed because of a person’s sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability. Through the Shepard-Byrd solicitation and the related Collaborative Responses to Hate Crimes program that seeks to address precipitous increases in hate crimes, OJP’s BJA will award $8.4 million in site-based funding and training and technical assistance. NIJ recently concluded projects to construct a database of individuals arrested or charged with hate crimes and to develop detailed, nationally representative data on hate crime incidents known to police. For more information about efforts across the Department of Justice to address hate crime, please visit https://www.justice.gov/hatecrimes.

I want to thank Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke for her leadership, for her longstanding commitment to this task, and for bringing us together today. The Justice Department was founded during Reconstruction to enforce the rights promised by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. While that review was nearing completion, Congress passed another piece of anti-hate legislation: the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act and the Jabara-Heyer No Hate Act. Pursuant to my directive and the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, the Civil Rights Division is also expediting its review of federal hate crimes. The purpose of that event was to help shape guidance aimed at raising awareness of hate crimes during the pandemic.

A coalition of civil rights groups releasing a report on hate crime laws says the protections against bias-motivated violence are inconsistent and lack uniformity nationally.

President Joe Biden is celebrating Pride Month at the White House, a reflection of the growing stature of the LGBTQ community at the highest level of government.

Wyoming lawmakers on Tuesday introduced a bill aimed at combating hate crimes in the state, one of three remaining with no laws against bias-motivated crimes on its books. More than two decades later, Wyoming remains without the law even though the 2009 federal anti-hate crime law bears Shepard's name. Sara Burlingame, a former Wyoming Democratic legislator who championed the hate crime bill before losing her seat in the November 2020 election, said she considers the lack of hate crime laws an "abdication of our values as Wyomingites." Some advocates also include Indiana on the list of states without hate crime laws, calling a law passed in that state in 2019 "problematically broad." Supporters of the bill in Wyoming include the Anti-Defamation League, which has advocated for hate crime legislation through their "50 States Against Hate" campaign.

Albany County Sheriff Aaron Appelhans stands in the county courthouse in Laramie, Wyo. Appelhans took office in January as Wyoming's as the state's first Black sheriff. – As a student at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy, Aaron Appelhans used to look at the photos of past graduating classes hanging on the wall. A decade later, Appelhans was appointed Wyoming's first Black sheriff, a post he took months after fury over racist policing roiled U.S. cities. But considering people of color for top law enforcement jobs remains the exception rather than standard practice, said Latham with the Wyoming NAACP.

(Democratic National Convention via AP)NEW YORK An unexpected travelogue connected as a television event during the second night of the Democrats' virtual convention, livening up a show that so far is struggling in the ratings. Four years ago, opening night drew just under 26 million viewers. NBC's telecast drew 2.28 million viewers, down from 4.29 million four years ago, Nielsen said. The left-leaning MSNBC, where Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid and Nicolle Wallace were anchors, led the way Monday with 5.1 million viewers, up from four years ago. Fox News Channel's audience was unimpressed; the 2.1 million viewers it reached for its hour of convention coverage compared poorly with the 3.4 million viewers that time slot occupant Laura Ingraham had on an average July day.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The family of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old Wyoming man killed in a brutal homophobic attack in 1998, had sharp words for Attorney General William Barr in a speech delivered Wednesday at the Justice Department. Deitle delivered the speech written by Shepard's parents, Judy and Dennis, and apologized on the pair's behalf for missing the event, noting that they were traveling. Dreiband spoke earlier in the event about the Justice Department's commitment to prosecuting hate crimes. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law just under 10 years ago by President Barack Obama. It expanded a federal hate crimes law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The parents of slain gay Wyoming man Matthew Shepard blasted U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday for failing to stand up for LGBT civil rights in a statement read at a Justice Department ceremony marking the 10-year anniversary of a hate crime law bearing their sons name. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. If so, you need not invite us to future events at the Department of Justice, Deitle said. A Justice Department spokeswoman disputed the Shepards characterization of the administrations position in the Supreme Court matter. Matthew Shepard was a student at the University of Wyoming in 1998 when was tied to a fence, pistol-whipped and left unconscious for hours in an anti-gay crime.

Nine of the party's leading presidential contenders participated in CNN's Equality Town Hall, co-hosted with the Human Rights Campaign on Thursday night in Los Angeles. It was the same question that New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker had refused to offer a yes-or-no answer to earlier in the town hall. Candidates say conversion therapy should be illegalDemocratic candidates opposed so-called conversion therapy, which is centered on the debunked assumption that sexual orientation can be changed by a series of procedures. She was answering a question from Seth Owens, who was forced into conversion therapy when his parents discovered his sexual orientation. O'Rourke was the first candidate to be asked about so-called conversion therapy, which he said "should be illegal."

1998: Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, dies at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, five days after he was beaten, robbed and left tied to a wooden fence post outside of Laramie, Wyoming. Police arrested Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson shortly after the attack, finding a bloody gun and Shepard's shoes and wallet in their truck. The two would eventually each be sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. Shepard's murder brought national and international attention to the contention of hate crime legislation at the state and federal levels. Pictured here is Shepard's mother, Judy Shepard, executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, standing next to a photograph of the fence where her son was murdered, during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on April 12, 2007, to announce the renaming of hate crime legislation in Matthew Shepard's honor.

1998: Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, is found tied to a fence near Laramie, Wyoming. He was in a coma after being robbed, pistol-whipped and tortured the night before and would die five days later at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. Police arrested Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson shortly after the attack, finding a bloody gun and Shepard's shoes and wallet in their truck. The two would eventually each be sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. Shepard's murder brought national and international attention to the contention of hate crime legislation at the state and federal levels.