The Essex County prosecutor is taking aim at the growing number of anti-Semitic incidents in the area.
Assistant Prosecutor Jesse Stalnaker said, at a virtual Town Hall meeting intended to address the concerns of the Jewish community, that it’s important to report any incidents you may see, even though these cases can be hard to prosecute.
“There is a very fine line between what constitutes a bias crime and what is protected by the First Amendment, it’s a very tricky statute,” he said, “I believe correctly very hard to prove or charge, because it is one of our only crimes in the state that requires you prove motive.”
He invoked that all-too-familiar phrase —if you see something, say something.
“It’s important that any time you see something that you think might rise to the level of a bias incident or bias crime, it’s important that you report that to your local police department. That essentially allows us to investigate and see if it does rise to the level of a bias crime, is to do further investigation into the matter,” he said.
Stalnaker said that’s how his office can assess the situation in the county and in the state.
“Every afternoon at 4pm I receive a list of emails of bias incidents that have occurred throughout the state, and the more that are reported, the more we have an idea of what’s going in in the state, what kind of trends or possibly repeat actors are going county to county,” he said.
Stalnaker said if you see a bias incident you can contact his office, the state attorney general, or your local police.