{"id":5628,"date":"2023-12-10T01:40:59","date_gmt":"2023-12-10T01:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=5628"},"modified":"2023-12-10T01:41:01","modified_gmt":"2023-12-10T01:41:01","slug":"los-angeles-sees-hate-crimes-surge-in-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=5628","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Sees Hate Crimes Surge in 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Peter Schurmann<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hate crimes in Los Angeles County surged in 2022, with attacks targeting a wide spectrum of racial and ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities. The increase is attributed in part to a rise in reporting locally, but also tracks wider state, national and even global trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest data comes from LA County\u2019s Commission on Human Relations, which just released its Hate Crime Report for 2022<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cReported hate crimes in Los Angeles County have reached the second highest level in more than 20 years,\u201d said Executive Director Robin Toma, speaking at a press conference Wednesday announcing the release of the report. \u201cNearly every race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion has been targeted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all, there were 929 hate crimes reported across the county in 2022, an increase of 18% over the year prior. (Statewide California reported an increase of 22%.) Of the total, 72% were violent, with race being the motivating factor in 57% of attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

African Americans were disproportionately represented among victims at 53%. Attacks targeting Latinos rose 3%, though 93% of these were violent, the highest of all racial-ethnic groups. Anti-Asian crimes fell by 25%, though the 61 crimes reported still marked the highest ever on record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eighteen percent of attacks were motivated by sexual orientation followed by those motivated by religious identification (16%). Of the latter, 83% were anti-Jewish, with the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict fueling an even greater spike in antisemitic and anti-Muslim attacks since fighting began this October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As reporting increases, so does the hate<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Toma said increased reporting through the county\u2019s LA vs Hate<\/a> website and to 211 LA, where victims can call in to report hate crimes and hate related incidents anonymously and in a multitude of languages, have led to higher overall numbers, though he acknowledged the numbers \u2013 as high as they are \u2013 represent \u201conly a handful\u201d of the actual total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, nearly half of all violent hate crimes are not reported to law enforcement, while an even greater portion of hate incidents and nonviolent hate crimes are not reported. Reasons include fear of engaging with or lack of trust in law enforcement, as well as concerns that reporting could invite further attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toma also described a wider atmosphere of rising intolerance and extremism as helping to fuel the increase in hate in Los Angeles. He ticked off a grim list of incidents, including racially motivated mass shootings in Atlanta, Pittsburgh, El Paso, and the May 2022 mass shooting in Buffalo, New York that claimed 10 lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latter, he noted, was linked to an incident involving an adult white male who targeted an African American teenager, making repeated phone calls and texts warning of his association with the Ku Klux Klan. The perpetrator sent multiple images of firearms, threatening a mass shooting like the one in Buffalo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is an example of how hate and violence outside informs violence in the county,\u201d said Toma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Hate has no boundaries\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

LA\u2019s Commission on Human Relations has been tracking hate crime data since 1980. A hate crime is defined as any crime motivated by bias against race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHate has no boundaries,\u201d said LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis. \u201cWhat we are seeing is a trend across the country and globe \u2026 Hate crimes continue to swell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was Solis, along with Supervisor Sheila Keuhl, who in 2018 drafted a measure aimed at protecting LA\u2019s minority communities from hate crimes. That measure ultimately led to the creation of the LA vs Hate anti-hate initiative. Led by the Human Relations Commission, LA vs Hate works with a coalition of community partners to track and combat hate across LA County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitors to the site will find an array of available resources and can also report hate crimes or hate related incidents. According to Toma, the LA v Hate site is now the 3rd<\/sup> largest source of reported hate crimes after the LAPD and the Sheriff\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a lot of challenges, but the good thing is we are collecting the data,\u201d said Solis, data that is used to help divert critical funding to anti-hate initiatives, including training for law enforcement, as well as education, data collection and coalition building efforts.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reporting key to combating hate<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

LA County Sheriff Robert Luna emphasized his department\u2019s commitment to combating the rise in hate and stressed the importance of coming forward when it happens. \u201cWhen there is an attack of hate, it threatens the entire community,\u201d Luna said. \u201cWhen someone doesn\u2019t report it, it feeds into the hands of the perpetrators.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The LA County Sherriff\u2019s office is one of the only ones in the country that tracks non-criminal hate incidents, explained Luna, noting that doing so \u201cgives the community a voice when hate does not reach the level of a crime\u201d and that it also helps to \u201cprevent acts of hate before they occur.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LAPD Assistant Chief Blake Chow echoed Luna. \u201cWe have to report. If people don\u2019t report, we don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also offered this reminder about the numbers contained in the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEach one of these numbers is attached to a victim \u2026 to a family,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a commentary on where we are as a society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Published without changes from Ethic Media Services<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Peter Schurmann Hate crimes in Los Angeles County surged in 2022, with attacks targeting a wide spectrum<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[232,231,24],"tags":[66,135,78],"class_list":["post-5628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-civil-rights","category-racial-violence","category-regular-column","tag-african-american","tag-hate-crime","tag-racial-discrimination"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5629,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628\/revisions\/5629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}