Tennessee moved to ban drag performers. Local prosecutor says he’ll charge them at Pride event
The fatal shooting of three Black shoppers in a Jacksonville, Florida, store last Saturday is being investigated as a federal hate crime, but Jacksonville hasn’t reported a single hate crime to the federal government for decades. Meanwhile, a Proud Boy received the second-longest sentence yet for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. And a prosecutor in Tennessee is planning to enforce the state’s anti-drag law against a local Pride event planned for this weekend, despite a federal judge’s ruling that the law is unconstitutional.
It’s the week in extremism.
Jacksonville has zero hate crime, per the FBI
Saturday’s racist shooting in Jacksonville is being investigated by federal authorities as a hate crime. The local sheriff said it was racially motivated and that the shooter “hated Black people." But Jacksonville is one of many Florida jurisdictions that hasn’t reported a single hate crime to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports – even as hate crimes, by one respected measure, rose to their highest level ever across the nation.
The national rise in hate crimes, as first reported by USA TODAY this week, was tallied by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino. They found a 10% rise in hate crimes reported to police in 42 major U.S. cities.
In the country’s 10 largest cities, the number of reported hate crimes rose even more – 22% from 2021 to 2022, making last year the second consecutive year they hit a record high.
The data mirrors the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Reports, which showed a 31% increase in hate crimes from 2020 to 2021. But that report is notoriously outdated – 2021 is the most recent year available – and also notoriously incomplete.
The FBI data shows that Duval County, home to Jacksonville, has never reported a single hate crime to the bureau, according to the FBI’s own reports. Curiously, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office reported 11 hate crimes in 2021, according to Florida’s attorney general.
This inconsistency illustrates a central flaw in federal hate crime data, said Brendan Lantz, director of the Hate Crime Research & Policy Institute at Florida State University: “There are places that just don’t submit anything at all,” Lantz told USA TODAY. “They don’t even say ‘We don’t have hate crimes,’ they just don’t acknowledge or report hate crime statistics. We call it ‘institutional defiance.’”
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Proud Boys sentenced to 17 years, 10 years for Jan. 6 insurrection
On Thursday, Joseph Biggs, a senior leader for the extremist street gang the Proud Boys, was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison for his role in the seditious conspiracy that led to the insurrection at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. On Friday morning, Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola was sentenced to 10 years.
It’s the second-longest sentence handed down to an insurrectionist. Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers, received a sentence of 18 years for his charges of seditious conspiracy and other crimes related to Jan. 6.
“I know that I messed up that day,” Biggs told the judge just before being sentenced, “but I’m not a terrorist.”
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly made his decision based on a ruling that the crimes constituted terrorism. Prosecutors had asked for a 33-year sentence.
Pezzola, who the judge called the "tip of the spear" of the Jan. 6 attack, was the first person to breach the Capitol, after smashing a window with an officer's riot shield. "I got caught up in all the craziness," Pezzola testified at his trial.
Tennessee prosecutor’s warning on Pride event
A prosecutor in Blount County, just south of Knoxville, Tennessee, issued a formal warning to organizers of Blount Pride, a pro-LGBTQ event scheduled for this Saturday, writing that they may face prosecution under the state’s new Adult Entertainment Act if the event goes ahead.
The law, passed earlier this year, forbids “adult cabaret” in many public spaces including near public schools and parks. It defines such entertainment as including “male or female impersonators, or similar entertainers.”
In June, a District Court judge in Memphis ruled the law is “unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad.” The Blount County prosecutor acknowledged this ruling in his notice, but said it only applies to Tennessee’s 30th judicial district, which includes Memphis and a small corner of the southwest of the state.
On Wednesday, the ACLU of Tennessee filed a lawsuit claiming the anti-drag law violates the First Amendment, is unconstitutionally broad and vague, and chills the free speech rights of Blount County residents.
“Threatening to enforce this unconstitutional law amounts to a harmful attempt to remove LGBTQ people from public life, which is simply unacceptable,” ACLU of Tennessee’s legal director Stella Yarbrough was quoted as saying. “The court has made it abundantly clear that drag performance is constitutionally protected expression under the First Amendment, regardless of where in the state it is performed.”
Pride events across the country have been beset by anti-LGBTQ protesters in incidents that have led to arrests.
Special report: A drag show, a protest and a line of guns: How the battle over one issue is tearing at America
Statistic of the week: 1,045
That’s how many people have been prosecuted so far for their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to USA TODAY’s running tally of arrests.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hate crime in Jacksonville; charges for drag show in Tenn?
