ProPublica: Hate crimes data

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to Utah’s Government Records Access and Management Act (“GRAMA”), 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.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and 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 10 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Ken Schwencke

Hi Michelle,

Thanks so much for getting back to me, I really appreciate it. Could I ask that you take another look at 2010-2015 though? According to the FBI's reports, the Ogden City Police Department reported at least 4 during that period, with the following incident dates:

2010-06-12
2014-09-19
2015-07-23
2015-07-24

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

Hi Michelle,

Thanks so much for your help with this request. So you're saying the ones marked in red were later determined by the Ogden Police to not have been hate crimes or otherwise bias-motivated?

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