'We Need To Evolve': Police Get Help To Improve Hate Crime Tracking

For the picturesque college town of Durham in southeastern New Hampshire, a reckoning came in 2017.

That was the year a complaint about the cultural appropriation of Cinco de Mayo spiraled into weeks of racial unrest, a boiling over of tensions that had simmered for years at the University of New Hampshire. Students who called out racist incidents faced a backlash of online bullying, swastikas and slurs, and the vandalism of sculptures that symbolized their cause.

Student activists blamed UNH leadership for allowing the problem to fester. Their criticism was backed up by news reports that showed the university hadn't reported a single hate incident for more than a decade before — an oddity for a campus its size.

"That time was sad," UNH Police Chief Paul Dean said. "But there were opportunities."

Dean was speaking from a campus auditorium this month as he welcomed guests to one of those opportunities: a hate-crime training for the university police and the Durham Police Department.