MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) -- A leading hate crimes researcher says Tennessee's LGBTQ and Muslim communities need to be on guard following this weekend’s attack in Orlando.
Phyllis Gerstenfeld is Chair of the Criminal Justice Department at California State University in Stanislaus. She says hate crimes are down overall nationwide in recent years, but she warns that spikes routinely occur following widely publicized tragedies like the mass shooting in Orlando this weekend.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see some small spikes as there are copycat incidents here and there, and reactionary things, both anti-LGBT hate crimes and anti-Muslim hate crimes. We’ve certainly seen that in the past from an event that’s caught a lot of people’s attention.”
Gerstenfeld notes that Tennessee does report hate crimes committed against LGBTQ individuals, something she says a surprising number of states don’t do.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation reports there were 35 hate crimes connected to sexual bias in 2015. There were 13 reporrted hate crimes committed against Muslims statewide. A total of three bias motivated murders were reported in Tennessee last year.