By Cliff Dunn

Photo: Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti is shown here with Captain Rick Wierzbicki who leads BSO’s Hate Crimes Task Force.

Sheriff Al Lamberti says that the communities he polices are diverse, vibrant, and thriving, but he remains deeply concerned and troubled that Broward County ranks first among Florida counties for reported hate crimes.

“Simply put: we don’t want to be number one in terms of these stats,” Lamberti emphasized. The sheriff, entering his fourth year in office, says that the numbers tell several stories.

The county’s number one ranking, Lamberti offers, is in some ways the result of hate crimes victims coming forward to report their attacks for the first time, inundating law enforcement’s reporting apparatus and giving a top-heavy statistic for crimes that went unreported or underreported all along.

“By establishing a Hate Crimes/Anti-Bias Task Force, we’re actively encouraging citizens who have been victims to report on these crimes,” Lamberti notes.

“That puts the focus on the numbers for BSO [Broward Sheriff’s Office]. The crimes themselves are deplorable,” the sheriff cautions, “but we want potential victims to report their attacks, or harassment.”

“At the same time,” he adds, “we want the state’s other police agencies to follow our lead and establish their own hate crimes task forces. When that happens, you will see a spike in their numbers, too. But it’s important to make victims know they have official assistance available to them, no matter whether they’re gay, or homeless, or had a ethnically-motivated hate crime perpetrated upon them.”

The state of Florida defines a hate crime as an act committed or attempted by one person or group against another –or that person’s property –that in any way constitutes an expression of hatred toward the victim based on his or her personal characteristics.

A report issued last month by Florida’s attorney general records 149 hate crimes being committed statewide for the year 2010, the last complete year for which statistics are available. Those numbers are slightly higher than the ones from 2009, but a vast improvement over 1992’s record of 395 hate crimes. The attorney general’s report details the number as well as the types of hate crimes committed throughout the Sunshine State.

Of hate crimes committed, nearly half were racially motivated–over 46 percent–while more than one-in-five, or 21.5 percent, resulted from the victim’s sexual orientation. Religious beliefs account for 19.5 percent of hate crimes statewide, followed by ethnically-motivated crimes at 12.7 percent.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the hate crimes stats were reported by law enforcement agencies across Florida. This data was then provided to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Both Broward and Miami-Dade counties saw the number of hate crimes reported drop in 2010. Miami-Dade experienced a drop in its 2009 numbers, from 17 to 11. Broward County again led the state in overall reported hate crimes with 19 cases, three less than in 2009. Of the 32 reported hate crimes in Florida that were motivated by sexual orientation, eight of them–25 percent–occurred in Broward.

Said Lamberti: “Broward is the most diverse county in Florida. Clearly, though, that statistic of number one is proof that we’re not all getting along with each other.”

Lamberti says he is encouraged by the response to his department’s efforts of law enforcement agencies and lawmakers outside of Florida, including members of Congress.

“When Maryland was looking to increase the classes protected under that state’s hate crimes laws, they looked closely at our efforts and internal practices in investigating hate crimes against the homeless and others, and used these as a model for retooling their laws,” he recalls. “It was gratifying, but at the same time, you say to yourself, ‘they are using our case to improve their own legal protections for victims, why isn’t the same being done here in our own state?’”

Lamberti and his office’s efforts paid off when Florida lawmakers got the message. “There was a sense,” Lamberti remembers, “that there had already been efforts to tackle this before. I said to the people who were helping us, ‘I haven’t tried before,’ and we used the clout of this office and the support of law enforcement to spearhead what was a legislative effort. It was gratifying.”

The sheriff acknowledges the work ahead. He admits that many crimes go unreported. But he believes that he has put a system in place that can adapt to the needs of victims and challenging conditions. One reason for his optimism is his choice of officers to command the Hate Crimes and Anti-Bias Task Force. BSO Capt. Rick Wierzbicki was a 24-year veteran of the Wilton Manors Police Department, retiring as Chief of Police in August 2005. It proved to be a short retirement.

“Capt. Wierzbicki’s experience leading a department in a city that has a diverse population comingling with one another makes him a natural candidate to bring disparate individuals and ideas together,” notes lamberti. “It requires him to be a leader, and also a diplomat and a consensus-builder when it comes to the numerous stakeholders who have a voice in combating these crimes,” he adds.

For Wierzbicki, the proof is in the pudding. “The reality is that hate crimes are being reported and investigated,” he said. “This entire agency wants to know if hate crimes are being committed.”

Broward’s standing as highest-ranked county for hate crimes is also drawing attention to the stats and reporting of Florida’s other 66 counties and their jurisdictions. Although Miami-Dade County reported 11 hate crimes for 2010, its largest municipality, Miami–the state’s second largest city–reported no hate crimes for the third consecutive year.

Broward Sheriff Lamberti refuses to throw any other police agency under the bus, but he is realistic about his and other departments’ reporting. “I want the rest of the state–and the nation, for that matter–to follow Broward’s lead and set up a system and the manpower for honest reporting and investigating,” said Lamberti.

“We look at a crime, or a possible crime, and don’t in any way mitigate or downplay the facts. If a crime looks like a hate crime, then that’s how it is investigated.

We don’t investigate an attack against two gay men, for example, as a robbery. We investigate it with the presumption that it is a crime of the most serious magnitude. The facts of the case may bear out that it is, in fact, a robbery, but we will investigate all elements of the case to ascertain both what it is, and what it isn’t.”

“As far as some places reporting ‘zero’ hate crimes, I find that a little hard to believe. I can’t comment on what transpires anyplace else but this office, but we don’t sweep stats under the rug,” Lamberti insisted.