how is that possible? >> even the federal government did not categorize this as a hate crime until well after a year later. >> but the data collection starts at the local level and it was charlottesville police that initially did not report this incident at a hate crime. >> the fact that this happened hat a time when you had literal neo-nazis coming out to the streets, it seems impossible not to look at this as a bias-based crime. >> a lot of information that was being uncovered about the suspect was uncovered after the fact. most people do not want to make a mistake and categorize something as a hate crime that can not be proven. >> that's not the federal standard. the idea is not that you have to be in the perpetrator's mind to understand exactly what happened at that time. >> reporter: was a researcher at the american arab institute that first discovered the missing data. >> how did you discover that heather heyer's death was not