Report: Hate Crimes Rise in Most Large US Cities

Most of America’s 10 largest cities had significant rises in hate crimes last year, increases that averaged 22% to a record 1,889 cases, according to a new report.

It was the second consecutive year of increases in the big cities’ overall average number of hate crimes, which are typically defined as violence stemming from victims’ race, color, sexuality, religion, or national origin.

The unpublished report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, reflects a 22-year trend of increasing hate crimes nationwide, amid a rise in white nationalism and attacks on Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, Axios noted.

Los Angeles had the most reported hate crimes with a record 609, with 195 classified as anti-Black, 98 as anti-gay, 91 as anti-Jewish, and 88 as anti-Latino.

Chicago had the biggest increase at 84.6%, followed by Austin, Texas, at 58.6%.

Phoenix, San Diego, and San Antonio had significant declines in hate crimes last year.

Among smaller cities, with populations of 500,000 to 1 million, Sacramento, California,  had the most significant percentage rise in hate crimes (47.4%), followed by Kansas City, Missouri (32.3%), Axios reported.

Black Americans were the most frequently targeted group in many cities, but the LGBTQ+ community, Asian Americans, whites, and Jews were the most attacked groups in some cities.

Last year, the FBI reported that in 2021 — the latest year for which data is available — the number of hate crimes nationwide jumped 31%. The bureau is expected to release its report for 2022 this year.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department will investigate the killing of three Black people in Jacksonville, Florida, as a “hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism.”

The Center for Hate and Extremism collects hate crime stats from police data, state reports, and open records requests.

The Center’s Brian Levin told Axios that hate crimes have jumped in recent decades partly because of better record keeping but also because of hate spreading quickly on social media. Such crimes tend to escalate at the end of the year around religious holidays, and in the months before presidential elections, Levin said.

In August, The Southern Poverty Law Center and dozens of other organizations wrote a letter to Congressional leaders urging them to tell their caucuses to refrain from using white supremacist and anti-immigrant rhetoric in campaigning and political action.

“Again and again, our country has experienced hate violence inspired by this conspiratorial rhetoric. We know this because terrorists tell us this in their screeds,” the letter reads. “Driven by fears of ‘replacement’ and ‘invasion,’ terrorists targeted the Latino community in El Paso, Texas, Black Americans in Buffalo, New York, and Jews in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and in Poway, California, among other communities.”