Montgomery County announces grants aimed at deterring bias incidents and hate crimes

Montgomery County has declared million in grants will go toward nonprofits and faith-based organizations to boost assurance and deter hate crimes The grants can be used to add or expand shield services upgrade measure planning or training and add new prevention cameras Since the county explained it s committed more than million for prevention grants Starting this year the grant funding can be applied to the county s MoCoConnect venture in which owners of assurance cameras can register them with the Montgomery County Police Department Registering your cameras does not allow the Montgomery County Police Department access to your live video stream it only enables investigators to know a camera is present at your location and easily request video evidence should an development occur according to the county s registration website Material from the Montgomery County Police Department s annual review on bias incidents from shows incidents were communicated and that of them were in the words of the description school-related The statistics from the record shows that of the bias incidents involved verbal intimidation involved written intimidation and involved simple assault According to the statistics of the stated bias incidents involved religion were antisemitic and were Islamophobic Ron Halber CEO of the Jewish Group Relations Council of Greater Washington informed WTOP he s not surprised to see so a multitude of of the incidents come under the school-related category The polarization of American society the rise of hatred in populace discourse has created a fertile ground for this time of hate Halber commented And the kids they see this and it feeds itself He reported the way general officers speak about each other would have been unacceptable in the past We live in a public that respects diversity as a part of the fabric of population and makes guidance available to make sure that all residents are safe regardless of their background Halber added referring to the work Montgomery County does to combat hate and bias incidents If the people of this country refuse to participate in hatred and bigotry and look at each other and open our hearts up and just tone down the rhetoric a little bit it ll be transformational A new hate-bias circumstance complaint portal was established in December along with a telephone hotline Source