On May 12, Governor Bob Ferguson signed an update to the state’s hate crime law, which aims to expand the definition of the offense, and is expected to go into effect July 27.

Kitsap County Prosecutor Chad Enright shared his support for the updated legislation.

“We no longer have to prove that bias was the sole motivating factor. We now just need to prove that it was a motivating factor,” he said.

On average, Enright said his office prosecutes roughly one hate crime case a year. For 2025, Enright said his office has one active case with charges filed in February.

“One of the frequent defenses that I will hear from defense attorneys is, ‘well, my client is not a racist, he’s just a jerk, and he treats everybody poorly,’” he said. “Well, that may be true, but if we have evidence that…he acted motivated by bias, then now we would be able to prove that as a hate crime.”

Enright said not all acts of bias or acts of hate are automatically hate crimes.

“You need to have that physical, assault, that injury, that injury to person or injury to property or a threat,” he said.

“The importance of reporting is that prosecutors and law enforcement don’t know, we won’t know about a hate crime unless it gets reported, and if it’s not reported, then it’s not on our radar and we’re not able to do anything about it,” Enright said. “So really, the first step in any crime is to report it, and it’s sometimes a fine line between a hate crime and hate speech.”

Bainbridge Island police chief Joe Clark spoke about the importance of reporting hate crimes.

“They should always be reported. We take it seriously, and if we don’t know about it, then we can’t do anything about it,” he said. “So I encourage everyone to report even if they’re not sure if it’s a crime or not,” he said.

Regarding previous incidents, in the last five years, Clark said a Pride flag at Seabold United Methodist Church has been stolen twice, a potential indicator of bias.

“Any indications of bias we want to investigate that thoroughly, document it thoroughly, and any evidence of that, make sure that we collect it and so that it’s all there and available if there’s an eventual arrest and prosecution,” he said.

Regardless of prosecutions, Clark said the BI police department always tries to identify factors and motivations as part of any report which he describes as a thorough police report.