May 27, 2017

 

NPR’s Michel Martin talks with Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Project Director Heidi Beirich about raised concerns of an increase in hate crimes after stabbings in Maryland and Oregon.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

A stabbing attack on a train in Portland, Ore., has left two people dead. The attacker was shouting what police have described as religious hate speech directed toward two Muslim women. Three men tried to intervene and were stabbed by the attacker, and two of those bystanders died. Now, this comes a week after another stabbing death in Maryland where a white college student stabbed and killed a black college student, Richard Collins III, whose funeral was yesterday. That incident is being investigated by the FBI as a possible hate crime.

We wanted to talk more about this, so we called Heidi Beirich, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. That’s a group that tracks extremist groups, files lawsuits and works with communities to advance civil rights. We spoke with her earlier today from her home in Alabama, and I started by asking her how her group characterizes the attack in Portland.

 

Full article:

http://www.npr.org/2017/05/27/530393081/splc-has-seen-rise-in-hate-crime-domestic-terrorism-attacks