The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) sent a letter today to Attorney General Jeff Sessions urging him to address the uptick in race-based hate crimes across the country and, in particular, the brutal murder of Timothy Caughman in New York by admitted white supremacist and terrorist James Harris Jackson.
LDF’s President and Director Counsel Sherrilyn Ifill issued the following statement along with the release of the letter to Attorney General Sessions:
“There have been at least six widely reported race-based hate crimes in the United States since Attorney General Sessions was confirmed. And sadly, the New York incident is not the first incident in this year alone in which we have seen someone associated with white supremacists expressly target and brutalize people on the basis of their race in the footsteps of Dylann Roof.
“It is on the Attorney General and this Justice Department to make clear that acts of domestic terror and hate, like this and other cases, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and as fiercely as any other acts of terror in this country. More broadly, given the rise of hate-related activities, we also call on DOJ to take the necessary steps to address and prevent these incidents systemically, including convening and leading an interagency task force to examine and investigate the surge in hate crimes and develop a strategy to combat them.”
Read the full letter here.
