October 29, 1999
Web posted at: 3:22 a.m. EDT (0722 GMT)

From CNN's Terry Frieden at the Justice Department

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Prosecutors asked Attorney General Janet Reno for funds to provide temporary financial assistance to victims of hate crimes, on Thursday, at a gathering of nearly 200 federal prosecutors and FBI investigators.

Prosecutors also requested transportation funds to help financially-strapped communities in rural areas, where travel costs can soar while investigating hate crimes.

The session was to plot strategies to combat hate crimes by violence-prone bigots, political extremists and troubled schoolchildren.

Among topics examined behind closed doors were hate crimes in schools and on the Internet.

The session was briefly open to the news media and public -- just long enough for the gathering to hear a pep talk from Reno.

Reno repeated the administration's long-standing desire to expand the current hate crime law to include bias based on sexual orientation, disabilities and gender. The existing hate crime statute is limited to bias based on race, religion, color and national origin.

The attorney general conceded it appears unlikely Congress will go along with the proposal.

"Prospects don't look good," Reno said.

The Justice Department also is lobbying Congress to drop the requirement that victims of bias must be engaged in "a federally protected activity" such as voting or gathering in a public place before prosecutors can bring charges.

"Haters are cowards. When confronted they often back down. We must resist haters," Reno told the attorneys and federal agents.

Reno said she was gratified that some "former skinheads had joined the mainstream," but said hate crime remains a major source of concern.

When Reno fielded questions, one of the federal attorneys who assisted the Texas prosecution in the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. expressed concern that hate against racial and ethnic groups is too often learned in prison, where inmates become members of angry gangs, and later are released.

Reno promised to pursue the issue with the Bureau of Prisons.

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