SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Hate crimes driven by homophobia and racism led to a 33 percent surge in reported incidents in California last year, following a similar spike in hate-driven attacks the year before, confirming officials since the pandemic The anecdotes we heard began, the state’s attorney general said on June 28.
Attorney General Rob Bonta said crimes against blacks were again the most common incident in 2021, rising 13 percent from 2020 to 513 reported incidents. Hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation bias increased nearly 50 percent to 303, while crimes against Asian Americans increased 178 percent to 247.
“As we’ve seen across the country, it’s a hard truth in our state that the hate epidemic we’ve seen during this pandemic remains a clear and present threat,” Democrat Bonta said in a news conference. “Each of these incidents represents an attack on a person, a neighbor, a family member, a fellow Californian.”
The 1,763 hate crimes reported in 2021 are the sixth-highest on record since the department began collecting and reporting data statewide in 1995. It was also the highest number since 2001, when California reported 2,261 hate crimes motivated by the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Last year’s annual report showed that in states where African Americans make up 6 percent of the population, anti-Black prejudice accounted for the majority of incidents, with an equally high increase — 31 percent. The 2020 report also showed a sharp increase in bias crimes against Asian Americans following the emergence of the coronavirus in China.
Last January, San Francisco police reported that videos of attacks on Asian Americans, especially older adults, went viral online, with a startling 567 percent increase in reported crimes over the previous year. Preliminary statistics show 60 victims in 2021, up from nine in 2020. Half of last year’s victims were allegedly targeted by a man.
Still, not all criminal attacks carry hate crime charges, as prosecutors need to prove the suspect was prejudiced. In San Francisco, for example, an 84-year-old Thai grandfather who died in 2021 will stand trial, although the district attorney’s office has yet to bring hate crime charges in the case.
Officials said the reported hate crime statistics could be far lower than the actual numbers, but added that they had taken steps to encourage victims to report. Nationwide, hate crimes rose to their highest level in more than a decade in 2019, according to an FBI report.
Community leaders who joined Bonta at the news conference urged people to report crime and seek resources such as mental health services. Hate attacks against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities are not new, said Cirian Villavicencio, commissioner of the California Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission.
But he said the sharp increase in attacks during the pandemic was worrying.
“Our elders are physically attacked, women and young people are verbally abused, AAPI students are harassed and bullied at school, and AAPI-owned small businesses are targeted and discriminated against because they are AAPI,” Villavicencio said.
In May, a white gunman killed 10 black shoppers and workers at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. Anti-Asian prejudice has risen sharply since 2020, including the March 2021 killing of eight people, including six Asian women, at an Atlanta-area massage parlor.
Hate crimes are motivated by the victim’s gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or disability. Hate incidents such as name-calling are not necessarily criminal acts. Since 1995, the California Department of Justice has been collecting and reporting statewide hate crime data.
Crimes against Latino bias increased 30 percent to 197 in 2021, while anti-Semitic bias incidents increased 32 percent to 152 in 2021, the most in the religious bias category.
Bonta announced the new position of the Statewide Hate Crimes Coordinator within the California Department of Justice to assist state and local law enforcement in the fight against hate crimes.
The report also showed that district attorneys and elected city attorneys filed 30 percent more cases involving hate crime charges in 2021.
