Hate Crimes Set a Record in L.A. County

For the seventh consecutive year, hate crimes reached record levels in Los Angeles County in 1991, with homosexual men the most frequent victims of increasingly violent assaults, the County Commission on Human Relations reported Thursday.

Overall, 672 hate crimes were recorded, a 22% increase over 1990. Gay men, blacks and Jews were the victims of 60% of all incidents.

For the first time in the commission’s 12 years of record keeping, assaults surpassed graffiti and criminal threats as the most common expression of bigotry based on race and sexual orientation. Also, the report documented at least one racially motivated murder, an African-American who was shot in Wilmington, allegedly by two Latinos.

“The crimes are becoming far more aggressive acts that reflect a greater level of tension and hostility in the community,” said Eugene S. Mornell, commission executive director. “The level of violence is increasing.”

The report cited the Persian Gulf War, the recession, on-going black-Korean conflicts and intergroup tension in an increasingly congested, diverse county as some causes for the sharp rise in crimes.

“We appear to be a less concerned, less compassionate society than we were several decades ago,” the report said.

“It doesn’t surprise me that the numbers are up,” said Joe Hicks, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “We just came out of a jingoistic war that made people the target of attacks, desperate economic times seem to pit ethnic groups against each other for jobs. . . . There is more tolerance for verbal assaults against people.”

Anti-gay crimes outnumbered those motivated by religious hatred for the first time, with 169 incidents directed toward sexual orientation and 150 toward religion.

Homophobic crimes were the most violent, with 117 cases of gay-bashing, in which gay men were attacked, mainly on sidewalks or at bus stops.

Roger Coggan, director of legal services for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center, said vocal and sustained demonstrations in Los Angeles over Gov. Pete Wilson’s veto last September of a bill that would have outlawed discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation is one reason for the upswing in hate attacks.

“The veto by the governor (of AB 101) in effect stated that gays and lesbians are outside the protection of the law when it comes to discrimination,” Coggan said. “That may not have been his intent, but that certainly was the effect of it.”

Wilson had maintained that existing law is sufficient to deal with cases of job discrimination.

As in previous years, blacks were targeted for the highest number of racially motivated crimes, with 130 reported, followed by 67 crimes against Latinos and 54 against Asian-Americans. Among Asian-Americans, Korean-Americans were victimized most in 1991, accounting for 35% of these incidents, the report stated.

In Wilmington, Oscar Ray Hunter, a 24-year-old African-American, was fatally shot, allegedly by two Latinos who ordered him out of a bar frequented by Latinos. Police said Hunter was forced out of the bar at gunpoint and racial epithets were shouted. Rodolfo Robles, 22, and Tommy Gutierrez, 35, were charged in the August shooting.

Attacks on Arabs residing in Los Angeles County surged in 1990 with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and continued into the early part of 1991, dropping when the Gulf War ended. These incidents represented 6% of racial crimes last year.

Anti-Jewish incidents continued to account for the vast majority of all religious hate crimes, with 86%--or 130 of the 150 crimes. These crimes typically involved graffiti vandalism at a house, business or synagogue, the report said.

A hate crime is an official classification within the California Penal Code in which a criminal act is motivated by bigotry, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender. The county commission collects data from 26 law enforcement agencies, fair housing councils and community organizations.

The crime must target a specific person, church, temple or organization to be considered a hate crime. Freeway graffiti, interracial crimes such as robbery when race is not one of the motivating factors, name-calling when not accompanied by an assault, and hate rallies are not included in the statistics.

Since 1985, hate crimes have been dramatically increasing, each year surpassing past records.

Acts of Hatred

Hate crimes in Los Angeles County have been steadily increasing over the last seven years. In 1991 gay men were the most frequent victims of crimes, followed by blacks and Jews. Combined, the crimes against these three groups constitute 60% of all 672 reported incidents. TOTAL HATE CRIMES

Racial, religious, Racial, gender-related religious crimes crimes 1991 672 503 1990 550 425 1989 378 292 1988 267 202 1987 NA 194 1986 NA 153 1985 NA 84

PROFILE OF 1991 VICTIMS Gay: 147 Black: 130 Jewish: 130 Latino: 67 Asian: 54 Anglo: 47 Arab: 22 Lesbian: 20 American: 13 Multiple Races: 9 Iranian: 8 Catholic: 6 Muslim: 3 Female: 2 Gay/Lesbian: 2 Jehovah’s Witness: 2 Mormon: 2 Protestant: 2 American Indian: 1 Atheist: 1 Buddhist: 1 Christian: 1 Presbyterian: 1 Source: Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission