Law enforcement continues to investigate whether the Texas gunman who killed eight people in Dallas over the weekend is tied to white supremacy. Experts said white supremacy groups are all over, including in the Commonwealth.
Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director of research reporting and analysis with the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that there are six formal hate groups in Virginia that the organization is tracking.
“Statistically we see that there is a direct correlation between involvement in these extreme far-right hate groups that are violent in nature and these mass shootings that are terrorizing our community in the last decade in the U.S.,” Carroll Rivas said.
While police continue to investigate whether the Dallas shooting that killed eight is among those hate groups, smaller-scale hate crimes happen yearly in Virginia.
Carroll Rivas said in the latest data collected in 2021, the Department of Justice reported 76 crimes based on race, 11 on religion, and 24 based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the Commonwealth.
“It’s a real challenge to see that, 76 hate crimes based on race or ethnicity, many against black folks in Virginia,” Carroll Rivas said. “That’s a harm to the community directly.”
In 2017, Charlottesville made national headlines when a driver ran into a crowd of people counter-protesting the Unite the Right rally, killing one woman.
“There are some major moments in the history of hate in the U.S., “ Carroll Rivas said. “Charlottesville is absolutely one of those.”
Carroll Rivas said ultimately the Commonwealth has an average amount of hate crime, but any is too much.
“At the end of the day if there is one group that is organizing, recruiting people, engaging in violence, harming communities, that is a problem that must be addressed,” Carroll Rivas said.
Data for 2022 has not been released yet. Carroll Rivas said hate crime data is not required to be reported by state and local agencies to the federal government, so it takes a while to gather data. Ultimately, she said there’s no way to know for certain just how many hate crimes happen statewide.