Hoovler, with a clear message
GOSHEN – In response to the desecration of a Jewish cemetery in Warwick two years ago, Orange County partnered with the Greater New York Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Jewish Federation of Greater Orange County to hold the county’s first hate crime training seminar on Wednesday.
This training is one facet of a larger initiative, within the county, to focus on hate crime awareness. The seminar was aimed toward law enforcement, school officials and community representatives, said District Attorney David Hoovler.
“The goal here today with the vast majority of law enforcement that are here for the section on how to investigate and how to deal with the crime scenes,” Hoovler said. “We also have a group of school professionals here – superintendents, and we are educating them about the signs and symbols and the laws of harassment in New York, and we have some community leaders here that are actively involved in this type of education awareness.”
The ADL claims to be the largest private contributor to national law enforcement with regard to hate crime and bias incidence work.
The seminar focused on teaching attendees the definition of a hate crime, the differentiation between hate crime and hate incidence, the understanding of local, federal and state laws regarding hate crimes, as well as to stress hate crime reporting among other things.
“This particular training is something that we do not only all over our region here in New York/New Jersey, but across the country,” said Deputy Director of the Greater New York ADL Melanie Robbins. “This is developed from our leadership and model policy work on hate crimes, and our own tracking not only of hate crimes, but bias incidents.”
Robbins said although this training is designed based on an existing template, vast community outreach from the county and support from the Jewish Federation of Greater Orange County made this training unique compared to others across the country.
