(upbeat music) - United Against Hate Week is a powerful collaboration of local organizations working to foster safety and solidarity.

Sim Gill, Salt Lake County District Attorney, and Olivia Jaramillo from Equality Utah join us to talk about the important initiative.

Welcome, both.

Okay, I'm gonna start with you, Olivia.

So let's talk about this week and why it's so important.

- It is so important that we celebrate that here in Utah since 2019, we've been able to have reporting mechanisms for reporting hate crimes, and it's something that we're very thankful for the state legislature to be able to pass such an important law into effect that it enables organizations in the state to be able to report hate crimes that happen for religious minorities, for gender, race, ethnicity, and that is something wonderful that we see happening in Utah.

- Great, great, and Sim, I'm gonna go to you 'cause you're gonna give us more details about reporting.

I know you said that between 2023 and 2024, the number of reports declined.

- They did.

- That doesn't mean they're gone.

- It's still one of the most under-reported incidents that happened there, and to Olivia's point that finally have a mechanism after 25 years of rallying for that, now, we can actually hold people accountable for that kind of behavior.

In this country, you get to believe whatever you want, you just don't get the right to act to the criminal harm of somebody, and so that law coming forward really gave us a tool by which to be able to address those issues, which are very important for our community, and there's still many communities that are afraid to come forward.

So we say report, investigate, prosecute, and protect, and that can't happen unless you report it.

- Right, so the reporting, you said people are more cautious about reporting now.

- They are.

They're much more hesitant.

There's a lot of stuff that's going around the country, but we're still emphasizing to them that there's a community here to support them.

We have legal laws here to protect them, but the investigation cannot start unless you report it, and if we can't investigate it, we can't prosecute it.

- Okay, well, thank you both.

This could be a whole hour conversation, but thank you so much for coming here and for doing the week of events, thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- And if you'd like to know more about United Against Hate, the week that's coming up, those events, well, Partners Against Hate, it is October 19th to 25th.

There are various activities, including at Westminster College.

Go to unitedagainsthateweek.org.

I'm Mary Dickson.

Thanks for watching "Contact."

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