Butterfly Effect Project to host hate crime seminar on June 26

After overcoming their own experiences with hateful social media attacks, The Butterfly Effect Project is hosting a public seminar this month to educate community members on the differences between a hate crime and a hate incident.

The free live seminar, titled “The Line Between Hate: Understanding and Navigating Hate Incidents and Crimes,” is scheduled for Thursday, June 26, at 6 p.m. at the nonprofit’s headquarters, 1146 Main Road, in Riverhead. This informational session is a collaboration with the Suffolk County Police Department Hate Crimes Unit, Riverhead Town’s Anti-Bias Task Force and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office.

Founder Tijuana Fulford said the goal is to provide attendees with a better understanding on what constitutes a “hate crime,” and why some situations, such as what the Butterfly Effect Project went through earlier this year, fall under the definition of a “hate incident.” The involved speakers will discuss why understanding these definitions is important for identifying practical steps one can take after encountering hate.

“Families get to come out and figure out why wasn’t this considered a hate crime, but more importantly, moving forward, what do we do if something like that happens, how do we protect ourselves,” Ms. Fulford said. “What steps should we take immediately to better prepare ourselves for this — and it was one of the things that I didn’t know, so if I didn’t know, imagine how other people didn’t know.”

In February, a flyer announcing the 10th annual Wo/man Empower Wo/men fundraiser was posted on the BEP’s Facebook page, featuring photos of Ms. Fulford and five honorees — all young female leaders from the Butterfly Effect Project. Shortly after the post was published, Ms. Fulford said, “racist attacks” began to appear in the comments section and “disgusting racist tropes, hateful demands and vile ignorance” were on full display.

The following month, when its “Pearls of Wisdom” event was announced, anonymous callers began to flood BEP’s telephone lines with profanities, anti-Black comments and racist tropes. When Ms. Fulford received a threatening call to her direct phone extension, she decided safety was in the organization’s best interest and she canceled the “Pearls of Wisdom” event.

An official police report was filed with the Riverhead Police Department, which then transferred the report to the Suffolk County Police Department’s Hate Crimes Unit. At the time, Ms. Fulford said, authorities were given information on the identities of the individuals who left the bigoted comments, a majority of whom were not from the local community.

Both the Suffolk County Hate Crimes Unit and Riverhead police determined the attacks were not considered hate crimes, but hate incidents, which was “a whole other pill to swallow” for Ms. Fulford, she previously told the News-Review.

The SCPD defines a hate crime as “a specified offense … committed or intended to be committed in whole or substantial part because of a belief or perception regarding the race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, ancestry, religious practice or age of a person, regardless of whether that belief or perception is correct.” 

A hate incident is defined as “an incident that is apparently bias-motivated, involving an element of hate targeting a protected class, regardless of whether the belief concerning the target’s membership in that protected class is correct, and regardless of whether said incident is unlawful.”

Ms. Fulford confirmed that as of today, no more anonymous calls have come in. Riverhead police officers continue to patrol around the nonprofit’s Jamesport headquarters and serve as security during events when requested.

“Once they realized that we were not backing down, we didn’t just shrink … the calls did eventually slow down,” Ms. Fulford said. “We’re educating ourselves and the community. We’re no longer explaining what we do, we’re showing you what we’re doing, so we’re becoming a lot more transparent.”

Social media protections have also been put in place, Ms. Fulford said. For example, a filtered list has been implemented to block any racist comments or commenters.

She said the process of revamping BEP’s security measures has been “hard and expensive,” and some funding for its crucial programming had to be diverted for these costs. However, Ms. Fulford said, it was important to make sure the organization wasn’t missing any “blind spots” on its headquarters property.

“It was just a lot of finances that had to be shifted to bring us up to a place where we can have video cameras, and not just a Ring camera, but we really needed to have video cameras,” Ms. Fulford said. “We have lights installed in the back now — we have done very subtle things that make a very big difference [for] the safety of everyone and the perimeters. Those things obviously cost money, but that’s okay.”

For more information on the Butterfly Effect Project’s Hate Crimes seminar, email the nonprofit directly at [email protected].