Shepards Speak to FBI in Clarksburg, WV Coinciding Release of 2014 Crime Stats
Violence against the LGBTQ+ community didn’t begin or end with Matthew Shepard. In fact, in huge portions of America, properly identifying, reporting and prosecuting these heinous crimes hasn’t even begun — despite the 2009 passage of the Shepard-Byrd Act. Matthew’s story, and the Foundation’s work to Erase Hate, are—unfortunately—still critical in coming to terms with the roots of violence against our community.
On September 28, Judy and Dennis Shepard, along with Dave O’Malley, the lead investigator into Matthew’s murder in Laramie, Wyo. in 1998 and now sheriff of Albany County, Wyoming, joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) to urge better hate crimes reporting and to spotlight the distressing lack of basic information about this epidemic of violence.