ProPublica: Hate crimes data

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the the Louisiana Public Records Act, I hereby request the following records:

Any database or other records of hate crimes or crimes evidencing bias of race, color, ancestry, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin or disability reported to or investigated by your agency since Jan. 1, 2010, containing at least the following fields:

the incident number
date of the incident
whether the crime was against individuals or a business / property
number of victims
race or ethnicity of the victims
gender of the victims
the offense classification
the location of the incident
the bias motivation (anti-black, anti-muslim, etc)

I would like the records in a machine-readable, electronic format if possible. If the records are kept in another format, or kept individually, I would still like copies.

This request is made as part of the Documenting Hate Project, a collaboration involving dozens of news organizations, led by ProPublica. Coverage from the project is compiled at https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/hatecrimes#hatecrime-coverage.

This request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 3 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Ken Schwencke

Hi Madisen,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. If there's a subset of the information within the same date range that would be easier to put together, I'd be happy to talk to you about that and see what would be easier to provide. If you think the request would get expensive -- say, more than $50 -- I'd love to know before you do all the work.

As to delivery, regular mail works! No worries. Email is preferable, but you can't always get what you want!

Thanks so much,
Ken Schwencke
ProPublica
w: 917-512-0253
c: 561-756-6135

Hi Madisen,

Great. I sent an email from my main email address, ken.schwencke@propublica.org, with a photo of my ID.

Thanks,
Ken Schwencke
ProPublica
w: 917-512-0253
c: 561-756-6135

Whoops, I'd blanked that part out , so re-sent the DOB.

Sorry it took me a little -- just sent off a check! Let me know when you get it. Thanks.

Ken Schwencke
ProPublica
w: 917-512-0253
c: 561-756-6135

To Whom It May Concern:

Please find enclosed a check for $43.00 to satisfy the fee associated with the attached public records request.

Thank you.