AT RECEPTION COMMEMORATING THE ENACTMENT OF THE MATTHEW SHEPARD AND JAMES BYRD, JR. HATE CRIMES PREVENTION ACT

East Room

5:45 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you so much, everybody.  Thank you so much, and welcome to the White House.

There are several people here that I want to just make mention of because they helped to make today possible.  We’ve got Attorney General Eric Holder.  (Applause.)  A champion of this legislation, and a great Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.  (Applause.)  My dear friend, senior Senator from the great state of Illinois, Dick Durbin.  (Applause.)  The outstanding Chairman of Armed Services, Carl Levin.  (Applause.)  Senator Arlen Specter.  (Applause.)  Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the House, Representative John Conyers.  (Applause.)  Representative Barney Frank.  (Applause.)  Representative Tammy Baldwin.  (Applause.)  Representative Jerry Nadler.  (Applause.)  Representative Jared Polis.  (Applause.)  All the members of Congress who are here today, we thank you.

Mr. David Bohnett and Mr. Tom Gregory and the David Bohnett Foundation — they are partners for this reception.  Thank you so much, guys, for helping to host this.  (Applause.)

And finally, and most importantly, because these were really the spearheads of this effort  – Denis, Judy, and Logan Shepard. (Applause.)  As well as Betty Byrd Boatner and Louvon Harris  – sisters of James Byrd, Jr.  (Applause.)

To all the activists, all the organizers, all the people who helped make this day happen, thank you for your years of advocacy and activism, pushing and protesting that made this victory possible.

You know, as a nation we’ve come far on the journey towards a more perfect union.  And today, we’ve taken another step forward.  This afternoon, I signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.  (Applause.)

This is the culmination of a struggle that has lasted more than a decade.  Time and again, we faced opposition.  Time and again, the measure was defeated or delayed.  Time and again we’ve been reminded of the difficulty of building a nation in which we’re all free to live and love as we see fit.  But the cause endured and the struggle continued, waged by the family of Matthew Shepard, by the family of James Byrd, by folks who held vigils and led marches, by those who rallied and organized and refused to give up, by the late Senator Ted Kennedy who fought so hard for this legislation — (applause) — and all who toiled for years to reach this day.

You understood that we must stand against crimes that are meant not only to break bones, but to break spirits — not only to inflict harm, but to instill fear.  You understand that the rights afforded every citizen under our Constitution mean nothing if we do not protect those rights — both from unjust laws and violent acts.  And you understand how necessary this law continues to be.

In the most recent year for which we have data, the FBI reported roughly 7,600 hate crimes in this country.  Over the past 10 years, there were more than 12,000 reported hate crimes based on sexual orientation alone.  And we will never know how many incidents were never reported at all.

And that’s why, through this law, we will strengthen the protections against crimes based on the color of your skin, the faith in your heart, or the place of your birth.  We will finally add federal protections against crimes based on gender, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation.  (Applause.) And prosecutors will have new tools to work with states in order to prosecute to the fullest those who would perpetrate such crimes.  Because no one in America should ever be afraid to walk down the street holding the hands of the person they love.  No one in America should be forced to look over their shoulder because of who they are or because they live with a disability.

At root, this isn’t just about our laws; this is about who we are as a people.  This is about whether we value one another — whether we embrace our differences, rather than allowing them to become a source of animus.  It’s hard for any of us to imagine the mind-set of someone who would kidnap a young man and beat him to within an inch of his life, tie him to a fence, and leave him for dead.  It’s hard for any of us to imagine the twisted mentality of those who’d offer a neighbor a ride home, attack him, chain him to the back of a truck, and drag him for miles until he finally died.

But we sense where such cruelty begins:  the moment we fail to see in another our common humanity — the very moment when we fail to recognize in a person the same fears and hopes, the same passions and imperfections, the same dreams that we all share.

We have for centuries strived to live up to our founding ideal, of a nation where all are free and equal and able to pursue their own version of happiness.  Through conflict and tumult, through the morass of hatred and prejudice, through periods of division and discord we have endured and grown stronger and fairer and freer.  And at every turn, we’ve made progress not only by changing laws but by changing hearts, by our willingness to walk in another’s shoes, by our capacity to love and accept even in the face of rage and bigotry.

In April of 1968, just one week after the assassination of Martin Luther King, as our nation mourned in grief and shuddered in anger, President Lyndon Johnson signed landmark civil rights legislation.  This was the first time we enshrined into law federal protections against crimes motivated by religious or racial hatred — the law on which we build today.

As he signed his name, at a difficult moment for our country, President Johnson said that through this law “the bells of freedom ring out a little louder.”  That is the promise of America.  Over the sounds of hatred and chaos, over the din of grief and anger, we can still hear those ideals — even when they are faint, even when some would try to drown them out.  At our best we seek to make sure those ideals can be heard and felt by Americans everywhere.  And that work did not end in 1968.  It certainly does not end today.  But because of the efforts of the folks in this room — particularly those family members who are standing behind me — we can be proud that that bell rings even louder now and each day grows louder still.

So thank you very much.  God bless you and God bless the United States of America.  (Applause.)

The new production, which opens nationwide Oct. 12 at more than 130 theaters, features a segment based on more than 10 hours of face-to-face interviews with convicted killer Aaron McKinney, conducted by Greg Pierotti, a gay actor/writer who helped create the original docudrama.

According to the detailed notes taken by Pierotti and condensed into the new script, McKinney says he had been drawn to crime ever since childhood, feels sympathy for Shepard’s parents and expresses regret that he let his own father down.

“As far as Matt is concerned, I don’t have any remorse,” McKinney is quoted as saying in the script, which was provided to The Associated Press by the production company.

McKinney, according to the script, reiterates his claim that the 1998 killing in Laramie, Wyo., started out as a robbery, but makes clear that his antipathy toward gays played a role.

“The night I did it, I did have hatred for homosexuals,” McKinney is quoted as saying. He goes on, according to the script, to say that he still dislikes gays and that his perceptions about Shepard’s sex life bolstered his belief that the killing was justified.

McKinney and his accomplice, Russell Henderson, targeted Shepard at a bar in Laramie in part because they assumed he was gay, according to the script.

“Well, he was overly friendly. And he was obviously gay,” McKinney is quoted as saying. “That played a part … his weakness. His frailty. And he was dressed nice. Looked like he had money.”

Early on Oct. 7, 1998, McKinney and Henderson offered Shepard a ride in their car, then robbed and savagely pistol whipped him and left him tied to a fence in a remote area outside town. The 21-year-old University of Wyoming student was found 18 hours later and died in a Colorado hospital on Oct. 12.

The murder has become an iconic cornerstone of campaigns to raise awareness about violence against gays and to pass hate-crimes laws. Shepard’s mother, Judy, has been an indefatigable campaigner, while “The Laramie Project” – which probed the murder and its aftermath through more than 200 interviews with Laramie residents – has become a well-known and widely viewed theatrical piece.

The New York-based Tectonic Theater Project, which created the original play, began work last year on the epilogue, titled “The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later.” The company’s artistic director, Moises Kaufman, said he wanted to find out how Laramie had changed in the years since the murder and his team reinterviewed many residents who figured in the earlier play.

More than 1,000 actors – amateur and professional – will be performing when the new show premieres next month on the 11th anniversary of Shepard’s death. Participating theaters range from high school stages to New York’s Lincoln Center, where Pierotti and other members of the original cast will perform.

Pierotti says he’s still not sure if he will play himself in the segment about McKinney, a dialogue that will take about 11 minutes on stage. The script is a condensed and occasionally reordered version of Pierotti’s notes from the prison; he says he tried to convey McKinney’s words as accurately as possible given that he was not allowed to use a recorder. Officials at Wallens Ridge State Prison in Big Stone Gap, Va., confirmed the interviews.

The last time McKinney made public statements about the murder was in 2004, when he was interviewed by ABC’s “20/20.” That interview raised the possibility that the crime was motivated by drugs rather than anti-gay sentiment, and Kaufman said he wanted the epilogue to address people’s views on whether the murder was a hate crime.

Pierotti said he visited McKinney once last November and twice more in July, speaking with him for more than three hours each time in the community visiting room at the maximum-security facility. McKinney and Henderson, both serving life sentences, are among several Wyoming inmates transferred to Virginia for logistical reasons.

Pierotti says he pressed McKinney several times on the question of remorse.

“Yeah, I got remorse. But probably not the way people want me to,” McKinney is quoted as saying. “I got remorse that I didn’t live the way my dad taught me to live.”

According to the script, McKinney expresses empathy with Shepard’s parents over the loss of their son, though he adds about Judy Shepard: “Still, she never shuts up about it, and it’s been like 10 years.”

“If I could go back and not be the one who killed him, I would,” McKinney is quoted as saying. “But I am better off here, myself. I’m doing way better in here than I ever was out there.”

Pierotti contacted McKinney through the intervention of the Rev. Roger Schmit, a Roman Catholic priest based in Laramie at the time of the killing. Schmit had many heartfelt talks with McKinney during jailhouse visits.

“When I visited Aaron, I felt there was a sense of remorse,” Schmit said in a telephone interview from Kansas City, Mo., where he now lives. “He would often pray for Matthew, for Matthew’s family.”

Yet Schmit has seen a rehearsal of the new script and said he has no doubt it accurately portrays McKinney’s current feelings.

“Of course, it’s disappointing to me,” Schmit said. “But I have confidence in his teachableness.”

Pierotti said he found McKinney’s demeanor and views unsettling at times, but also compelling to the point where he sought to build a level of mutual trust. For example, Pierotti chose to acknowledge to McKinney, at their last meeting, that he was gay, and recalls McKinney responding amicably, “I thought so.”

“He’s perfectly comfortable acknowledging he doesn’t like gay people, and for me it was unnerving to experience his lack of remorse,” Pierotti said. “Yet I feel very protective of him – not in an apologist way, but I see he has a lot of complexity. … As an artist, it’s more interesting to dig into who this person is.”

In the script, Pierotti asks if McKinney, who is now 32, he expects to ever go free.

“Man, I’m never getting out of here,” McKinney is quoted as responding. “I’m like the poster child for hate-crime murders. … And you got to resign yourself to it or you go crazy.”

I wrote last week about how frustrating it was that conservative senators were including a spending measure Obama has promised to veto in with a hate crimes bill that simply affords equal protection for LGBT Americans as granted to other minority communities.

Today, the Senate approved the hate crimes amendment and eliminated the F-22 hurdle. Finally, Matthew Shepard is poised to be written into law.

This victory, and it is a victory, looked almost impossible only a few days ago. But Robert Gates, Joe Biden and Rahm Emanuel gave speeches arguing for the elimination of F-22 funding -  a move that illustrates the value of the Matthew Shepard Act as clearly as it illustrates Obama’s opposition to the F-22 expansion.  They put serious pressure on Senators supporting the funding move (including those who supported the funding as a way to thwart the hate crimes change).

His administration worked quickly to reverse a political tide in Washington to avoid having to alienate the LGBT community. I see this as a sign of hope. I see this as a sign of growing LGBT political power and I see this as the beginning of the fulfillment of Obama’s campaign promises to us.

If all goes well, this will be cause for celebration.

* for those following debates today, the big question is what role the death penalty will play in the final hate crimes scheme.

CHICAGO - AUGUST 15: The F-22 Raptor performs stunts and tricks during the 50th Annual Chicago Air and Water Show on North Avenue Beach in Chicago

Today, it was confirmed that the Senate’s version of the Matthew Shepard Act is linked to increased funding for the F-22 Fighter Jet program. This, while a weird combination, is also a dangerous alliance.

Obama has stated that he supports an inclusive hate crimes bill, but that he will veto any piece of legislation that includes increased funding for the F-22 program.

While this may seem like a fair compromise: more money to kill people effectively abroad while also gaining more power to punish homophobes at home, there is no way that abandoning the smart decision to curb defense spending in a recession should be acceptable just because an amendment concerning LGBT rights is on the table as well.

Last April, the House passed an independent version of the inclusive hate crimes bill. The Senate has failed to do the same. That failure doesn’t mean we, the public and, more specifically, the LGBT public, should stop demanding that hate crimes be dealt with independently.

At this point, conservative politicians are pretty happy with themselves. They think that, either way, they’ve put Obama in a pretty difficult position. Either he has to backtrack on his promise to veto F-22 spending or he needs to offend, again, LGBT Americans.  We, as a community, can extricate the President from this bind.

I am no blind supporter of the Obama administration. Often their decisions on LGBT issues have been short-sighted and offensive. But I refuse to accept that the only way gay-bashing can be addressed effectively through Congress is in conjunction with 680 million dollars in defense spending. We need to send the Matthew Shepard Act back, demand that it get its own bill, and allow the Obama administration to stick to their promise to kill the F-22 program.

Let’s undermine the clever move of conservative Senators.

One of them is Wyoming.

Wyoming, where 10 years ago, Matthew Shepard was robbed, pistol-whipped, tortured, tied to a fence and left to die.

Wyoming.

Though it’s not like the other 45 states WITH hate crime laws are perfect. Only 32 of them cover sexual orientation. Only 11 cover gender identity.

Last month, the House passed a hate crimes bill by a wide margin – a bill which would protect gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders in all states, including ones like Wyoming that have no hate crime bills of their own. But the Senate is more complicated.

Currently, the sponsors of the bill are looking to attach it to a bill that is likely to sail through the Senate, because it is not strong enough to survive on its own. Hopefully, the President’s support – he said it would “enhance civil rights protections, while also protecting our freedom of speech and association”  – will help facilitate this process.

But even if it does pass, it’s not enough.

Last night, at a discussion hosted by Turner’s employee affinity group, Matthew’s mother Judy Shepard expressed dismay and frustration that 10 years after his son’s death, little progress had been made.

“I never thought I’d still be doing this 10 years later,” she said, her voice quiet but firm.

She said that prosecution is only one piece of the puzzle –  we also need to focus on prevention.

Prevention of violence means education. It means school anti-bullying laws. It means explaining to kids that saying “that’s so gay” is not a neutral term but a loaded one inspiring anxiety in gay and lesbian classmates. It means trying to eliminate the culture of hate where it grows – in families, in churches, in schools.

It is exactly this education piece that our opponents are worried about.

Anti-gay legislators – people like Rep. Virginia Foxx, who called Matthew Shepard’s death a “hoax” in front of his mother, before apologizing – are worried that we will educate people into understanding that gay, lesbian and transgender people are perfectly normal. They worry that their children and grandchildren will grow up in a world where no one shudders at the sight of two men holding hands, or two women pledging commitment to each other in white gowns.

They worry that it will be SO normal, that perhaps one of their daughters will kiss another girl and think nothing of it; perhaps one of their sons will fall in love with another man.

They worry that their values will no longer be the country’s values.

And they are right to worry, of course. The acceptance of gay rights IS generational. The younger you are, the more likely you are to be growing up with the idea that gay is A-OK.

Even so, we are far from a world – or a country- which practices non-violence toward our community. In the past week, here in Manhattan, four different people were attacked in what seem to be anti-gay crimes. Attacked in Chelsea, the center of the gay community, in one of the most liberal cities in the world.

We are not yet safe, no matter where we live.

Sharon Staple, executive director of New York’s Gay & Lesbian Anti Violence Project, says we will know we have our full civil rights when we can walk down any street in this country, in any city, holding our partner’s hand and not being afraid.

In New York or in Wyoming, that day still seems very far away.

And no, Virginia Foxx, fatally beating a 21-year-old man  is not an “unfortunate incident.”

You took to the U.S. House floor April 29 to oppose passage of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, as a representative from North Carolina and as the floor manager of opposition to the bill.

You said, “The hate crimes bill that’s called the Matthew Shepard Bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn’t because he was gay. This — the bill was named for him, hate crimes bill was named for him, but it’s really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills.”

But no, Virginia, the outcry over Shepard’s violent death was no “hoax.” Nor was the press response, the court response, the law enforcement response, the penal response, the legislative response nor the grassroots response part of a massive “hoax” on the American public to promote a gay agenda or to trick lawmakers into imposing unjust or unnecessary laws on people.

Yes, Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney robbed Matthew Shepard, but they were not sentenced to double life terms in prison for robbery.

And no, no, no, Virginia, the killing was not an “unfortunate incident.”

An unfortunate incident is a small occurrence: locking your keys in the car, plugging up the kitchen sink, forgetting to set the alarm, letting the dog chew your homework, losing a library book, missing the bus, leaving your resume on the office printer or burning your TV dinner.

 “Unfortunate incident” does not describe what happened on Oct. 7, 1998, nor does “killing in the commitment of a robbery.”

Had Henderson and McKinney only wanted to rob Matthew Shepard, they could have taken Shepard’s money in the parking lot of the Fireside Lounge and then taken off.

That is not what happened.

What happened is Henderson and McKinney targeted Shepard in the bar and lured him into a truck, where they robbed him of $30 and repeatedly beat him with a .357-caliber Magnum pistol.

The beating continued as they drove to the remote outskirts of Laramie. The truck stopped. Henderson tied Shepard to a wooden buck fence and McKinney continued to bring down the gun, striking Shepard again and again and again. Eighteen agains, at least.

The assailants left Shepard tied to the fence, where a bicyclist came across him about 18 hours later. Shepard died Oct. 12, 1998, in a Colorado hospital.

Henderson and McKinney robbed Shepard — taking his money, his wallet and his shoes — but much more happened that night than a robbery, than a killing in commitment of a robbery, than an unfortunate incident.

“Unfortunate incident” does not describe two men admitting that they decided to target another man for their crime because he was gay.

“Unfortunate incident” does not describe a man striking another man, tied to a fence, unable to flee, unable to fight back, 18 times with a hefty handgun, but hate killing describes what happened.
And you know Virginia, “unfortunate incident” does not even accurately describe a clearly uninformed person being re-elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Virginia, not even your floor speech — in which you did not know the correct name of the measure you were opposing — was simply an unfortunate incident.

But yes, Virginia, you might say you are a victim of a con, not one perpetrated by those enraged by the killing of Matthew Shepard, but by those who distort, manipulate or hide the facts to suggest that hate did not drive Matthew Shepard’s killers.

When it comes to police dramas, I’m old school in my taste. Want to hear me yammer all night? Say Hill Street Blues. Out of all the perfect episodes there is one I keep going back to. A nun is raped and murdered. As expected, the police go in overdrive to find the culprits. On the same day the owner of a grocery store is murdered in his place of business. While tragic, the police of “The Hill” are not getting pressure from their bosses and the media to solve that crime.

The owner’s  wife comes to the station to wonder where are the detectives who were supposed to come and ask her questions. Of course they are working on the death of the nun.

Our American mythology of equality is belied by the crimes we pay attention to. Young white girls killed in a Caribbean paradise will get the Nancy Graces of the world on “steeds of justice,” while the murder of brown teenagers gets relegated to page 7. Their names known only by family and friends

We like to talk about community and such, but our own our gay victims of violence are placed on a hierarchy of attention. Everyone reading this knows the life and death of Matthew Shepard. Hard not to really. Mainstream press attention. A play. The murder of this blond young man in the outback of Wyoming was perfect grist for the media maw.

Make no mistake please: no one is trying to minimize the tragedy of the boy’s death; however, the murder of Sakia Gunn was just as tragic but her short life, and death, lack the national resonance of Shepard’s. In 2003, the 15-year-old was stabbed in downtown Newark by an older man whose sexual advances were not returned by Gunn and her friends.

Chas Brack, the director of a new documentary about Gunn, notes that one of the reasons why the young woman’s death failed to strike much heat in the media world was because of access, or the lack thereof, to the media. That’s too fair by half. The Gunn story is not going to get a reporter or writer a plum assignment or some ducats on the speaking tour. Speaking in eloquent tones about murder in the heartland though? That’s the express lane to editors and those in charge of the ink.

Eighteen-year-old Michael Causer was attacked on July 25th, beaten in what police described as vicious and unprovoked homophobic bashing. He was found unconscious on a road, lying in a pool of blood.

The openly gay teen suffered massive brain injuries and was rushed to the hospital. He died eight days later, when doctors declared him brain dead and a ventilator was removed.

Gavin Alker, 19, and James O’Connor, 19, were arrested several days after the beating and charged with causing grievous bodily harm. The charges were changed to murder following Causer’s death.

At Liverpool Crown Court Friday, Alker and O’Connor heard the charges read and entered not guilty pleas. Alker entered his plea via video link from prison.

He was ordered held in custody. O’Connor was given conditional bail. The three will return to court Jan. 26 for the start of their trial.

A third man, Michael Binstead, 18, has been charged with perverting the course of justice He, too, has been released on bail and has been ordered to return to court on Dec. 5.

Causer’s family and friends packed the courtroom Friday to see the accused. Several broke down as the charges were read.

The killing galvanized Britain’s LGBT community and has drawn comparisons to the murder of  Matthew Shepard in Wyoming in October 1998.

Shepard was a gay University of Wyoming student. He met two men in a Laramie bar and left with him.  He was beaten and left to die lashed to a fence on windswept country road. Found unconscious, he was rushed to the hospital, but died a week later.

Two men are currently serving life sentences for Shepard’s murder.

by Lisa Neff

Sometimes I say “I hate…”

I say, “I hate peas.” In fact, I’m frightened of them.

I say, “I hate softball,” because I believe it is misused to reserve a better game for boys and men.

I say, “I hate litter, smog, cold weather, hair in my food, rocks in my shoes, flat tires, lower back pain and when candidates lie when they know the truth.”

But when I think about the damage caused by hate, I regret that I ever say, “I hate…” and that saying “I hate” comes as easy as “I love…”

Hate, as defined by Webster’s dictionary, is “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury; extreme dislike or antipathy.”

I derive my hatred of peas from fear.

I get my hatred of softball from a sense of injury and injustice.

That hate that comes while watching a campaign commercial espousing known falsehoods, well, that boils out of fear, anger and a sense of injury.

Sometimes I say “I hate…” and sometimes I feel hate, and sometimes I mistake annoyance for hate — because it is difficult to compare my intesne aversion to cold weather to a person’s hatred of a kind of people or an organized effort to rally hate.

The FBI released a new batch of statistics in late October on hate crimes in America in 2007. The report comes out each year just after we observe the anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s murder and just before we observe the anniversary of Harvey Milk’s murder.

The FBI report, based on statistics provided by local law enforcement agencies, indicates a slight drop in hate crime incidents from 2006 to 2007. The bureau reported 9,535 people were targeted in 7,624 hate-crime incidents — 1.3 percent fewer than the year before.

The FBI also reported a 5.5 percent rise in hate crimes motivated by bias against a person’s sexual orientation, as well as another rise in the number of hate crimes against Latinos for a 40 percent increase since 2003.

About 52 percent of the reported hate crimes were classified as assaults and 47 percent involved intimidation.

If the FBI statistics accurately reported the number of hate crimes in America, such crimes would be occurring at about the cruel rate of one attack every hour of every day of the year.

But we know the FBI statistics undercount the number of hate crimes in America for a variety of reasons — victims may not report crimes, the most violent of crimes may not be investigated or prosecuted as bias-motivated crimes, reporting agencies change from year to year, definitions and classifications for hate crimes differ from locale to locale and some agencies do not track or report hate crimes. Mississippi reported zero hate crimes to the FBI for 2007. Alaska reported one bias-motivated crime and Georgia reported three incidents.

A U.S. Justice Department study, using National Crime Victimization Surveys, found that the hate crime rate is probably about 20-30 times higher than the FBI’s annual statistics suggest, that about 191,000 hate-crime incidents occur each year. If that number is accurate, and experts at the Southern Poverty Law Center and other anti-violence organizations believe it is, hate crimes occur at a horrific rate of 22 an hour of every day of the year in the United States.

It would be pie-in-the-sky to think that as the nation is poised to elect its first black president, hate in America would be directed not at people but just peas and litter, cold weather and flat tires.

But I can hope that this week’s election will bring change in Washington in January that will lead to change across America in the years to come.

Enacting the federal hate crimes legislation stalled by the Bush administration would be a start.

We must expand the federal government’s ability to investigate and prosecute bias-motivated crimes when local investigators are unable or unwilling to investigate.

We must make federal funds available to help local agencies offset extraordinary costs that can be associated with hate-crime investigations.

And we must expand the federal hate crimes law that currently covers race, color, religion and national origin to include sexual orientation, gender identity, gender and disability.

Dr. Patrick Allen said he has kept records of all of his work, including the Shepard autopsy, which is among many that seem to be missing from the Albany County coroner’s office.

Coroner Tom Furgeson has claimed records were missing when he took over in 2007. Julie Heggie, who served as coroner from 1990 to 2006, has said she handed over autopsy reports to the county attorney when she left office.

Albany County Sheriff James Pond said this week that he’s working with Furgeson on a “fact-finding inquiry” to determine whether any records are missing. The inquiry includes a review of the types of records that should be maintained in the office, he said.

Shepard was a gay UW student whose beating death in Laramie garnered national attention. The two men convicted in the case are serving life sentences in prison for the murder.

Allen, the coroner and medical examiner for Larimer County, Colo., said he regularly performs autopsies for Wyoming agencies on a contract basis because Wyoming doesn’t have any certified forensic pathologists.

“When we perform autopsies for other jurisdictions, I would keep copies of the autopsies that I do,” Allen said. “And I did Matthew Shepard. And I have the records on that.”

Heggie said she turned over the Shepard autopsy report to county prosecutors when the criminal case was being investigated. She said her office “meticulously” followed “the letter of the law.”

“Per legal and accepted practice in the State of Wyoming, all materials gathered for investigation and cause of death pronouncement were secured by my office,” Heggie said in a statement released by her attorney.

County Attorney Richard Bohling, who wasn’t in office at the time of the Shepard case, has declined to comment on the possibility of missing records.

Furgeson said he received only a small box of records covering the previous 16 years when he became county coroner in January 2007. He said the office is required to keep documentation of its work. He said it would be unacceptable for another county office, such as the attorney or clerk, not to pass along records when a new administration takes over.

“The cases don’t go away when the office changes hand,” he said. “I’ve received dozens of requests for death investigation information for cases that preceded my taking office.”

Furgeson said he has not requested another copy of the Shepard autopsy report from Allen, the pathologist in Colorado. Furgeson said he wants to determine whether records are missing before tracking down new copies.

“We’re going have to probably deal with several different agencies to reconstruct our records,” he said.