Rise in Hate Crimes Must Be Confronted : * Communities Should Continue to Deal Head-On With Violent, and Vile, Incidents

No one who reads through the list of Orange County’s reported hate crimes for 1991 can help but be disheartened. The more than 120 incidents--ranging from the Costa Mesa teen-ager assaulted a year ago by men shouting homosexual slurs, to a burnt cross, hood and hangman’s noose found last month in the Lemon Heights area near Villa Park--are a sad commentary on society in general and on the county in particular.

Even more discouraging was the substantial increase in the number of reported incidents--from 16 in 1990 to 120 in 1991. Although many of these could be attributed to improved reporting methods among county law enforcement agencies, there is a general agreement among police and social services agencies that hate crimes are on the rise.

But there is also a little good news in the report pulled together by the Orange County Human Relations Commission: The response to incidents was far stronger in 1991, both in the community and among law enforcement agencies. That’s something for the county to build on to discourage hate crimes in the future.

Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the Human Relations Commission, said that the county made important strides during 1991 in documenting hate crimes. Also, last October, Garden Grove Police Chief John Robertson provided the leadership to organize the county’s first hate crimes symposium. By bringing together law enforcement with victim groups, the symposium helped sensitize police as well as the community to the seriousness and destructiveness of these crimes.

Some who deplore the incidence of hate crimes in Orange County also fear that publicizing them may lead other hooligans to commit similar acts. This is perhaps a danger.

But it is also vitally important that people know these incidents are happening so that they can take a stand against them in their communities, families, churches and social groups.

It was gratifying to note that President Bush feels so strongly about the rise of “a certain kind of bitterness, racist comments, anti-Semitism (and) an increased sense of division” in America that he mentioned it Tuesday in his State of the Union speech. He said: “Really, this is not us. This is not who we are. And this is not acceptable.”

One has only to read the ugly language, violence and the incredible stupidity of each of the hate crimes reported last year in the county to know that the best approach is for the community to confront these incidents head-on.