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Panelists from Illinois, New York and Colorado outline state approaches to preventing targeted violence
Summary
Representatives from Illinois, New York and Colorado described state-level targeted-violence prevention plans, including Illinois’s Help Stop Hate helpline and FOIA exemption for reporting, New York's BTAM rollout supported by a $10 million grant across counties, and Colorado's fusion-center housed prevention team and long-bill funding for community projects.
Panelists from three states told the task force that targeted-violence prevention programs work best when they combine public-health frameworks, local partners and sustained funding.
Elana Khan, executive director of the Illinois Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes, described Illinois’s commission-based approach and three major projects: a helpline branded Help Stop Hate (launched October 2024 with Department of Justice funding), practitioner capacity-building, and a proposed Resilient Illinois program to expand local resources. Khan warned of an "education loophole" in Illinois law that requires in-person offender education but lacks programs to implement that requirement; she said the commission amended parts of the human-rights act to exempt helpline data from FOIA to protect reporters.
Paula Granger, who leads the domestic terrorism prevention unit at the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, described New York’s behavioral threat-assessment and management (BTAM) expansion after a racially motivated attack in Buffalo: an executive order and a grant program that allocated $10,000,000 to county plans intended to help counties build and sustain BTAM teams. Granger said 56 of 58 jurisdictions now have some BTAM activity and that teams differ by county; the unit provides training, threat-environment briefings and regional gatherings to support multidisciplinary practice.
Tiffany Sewell, director of prevention and public-safety engagement at the Counterterrorism Education and Learning Lab in Colorado, summarized Colorado’s plan (started in 2018, signed by the governor in 2023) and emphasized that prevention work is multi-tiered: primary prevention, community awareness and secondary intervention through BTAMs. Sewell said Colorado established line-item funding in its long bill to support community prevention projects and uses statewide reporting (for example, Safe2Tell) to integrate primary-prevention channels with threat-assessment responses.
Panelists recommended practical steps for jurisdictions starting prevention programs: build a plan while convening the people who will implement it; fund local champions; train mental-health practitioners to support BTAM work; and design communications and outreach tailored to local trusted messengers. New York and Colorado speakers stressed the importance of multidisciplinary teams and warned that BTAM is not a 'checkbox' activity but requires long-term resourcing and professional judgment.
Next steps: task-force members said they will review these models while finalizing draft recommendations and preparing public outreach materials.
