Prosecutors must show that a white supremacist who allegedly shot three people outside Kansas City-area Jewish-community facilities was motivated by anti-Semitism, if they wish to charge him with a hate crime, Professor Donald Tibbs said in the Christian Science Monitor on April 15. 

“Because a hate crime is an intentional crime, prosecutors have to show he definitely committed a criminal act with intentional hate,” Tibbs said. 

Defense attorneys representing accused gunman F. Glenn Miller may argue that he did not act out of hatred, since the victims were not Jewish, Tibbs said, adding that his shout of “Heil Hitler” after his arrest will help prosecutors connect his anti-Semitic views to his actions. 

Tibbs is an expert on the overlapping issues of race, law, civil rights and criminal procedure.