St. Louis Vandalized Cemetery Town Mulls Anti-Hate-Crime Resolution
(JTA) — The city council of a suburb of St. Louis is considering an anti-hate crime resolution which would create a database of hate crime offenders.
The resolution was introduced to the University City council on Monday by Councilman Rod Jennings.
Jennings told local media he had been considering introducing such legislation since November, long before the vandalism attack in University City’s Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery, in which 154 headstones were knocked over or damaged.
The resolution would create a hate crime database system similar to a sex offender registry. Anyone who has been convicted of a hate crime that moves into or out of University City would be in a database for all citizens to access.
Police still have not identified any suspects in the case, nor have they definitively decided to label the attack as a hate crime.
“I think it is important that we know they are living close to our schools and our children, close to our resident and our homes, close to every mosque synagogue and church,” Jennings told the St Louis Post-Dispatch.
The city council will vote on the measure at its regular meeting in two weeks on March 13.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30