After Ahmaud Arbery was chased down and killed while he was jogging in Glynn County, Ga., investigators say, one of the white men accused of shooting him used a racial slur. In the above video, Wanda Cooper-Jones, Mr. Arbery’s mother, demands that these men be prosecuted not just on charges of killing her son but also for targeting him because of his skin color. Yet at the time this video was produced, that couldn’t happen: Georgia was one of just four states in the country without a hate crime law.

Georgia lawmakers responded to Ms. Cooper-Jones’s words. When they went back into session the week our video was released they called a hate crime bill to vote and passed it through the state legislature.

Now, if we can’t stop these hate-inspired attacks, we can at least prosecute them for what they are.