Gays Become No. 1 Target of Hate Crimes : Human relations: They have replaced African Americans as the most frequent victims of such incidents, county report finds.

For the first time since officials began keeping records three years ago, gays and lesbians have replaced African Americans as the most-targeted victims of hate crimes and hate-related incidents, according to a study released Monday.

The report, issued by the Orange County Human Relations Commission, showed that the overall number of reported hate crimes and incidents declined slightly from 1992 to 1993. But reported incidents in which gays and lesbians were targeted rose 40%, making them the group most victimized.

“It certainly doesn’t surprise us,” said Craig B. Coogan, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center of Orange County. “I think we’re in a political climate here where politicians and so-called religious leaders have made gay-bashing an acceptable form of freedom of expression.”

Because so many high-profile issues involving gays and lesbians have come to the fore in recent years, such as whether homosexuals can serve in the military, Coogan said it is understandable that more gays and lesbians would end up the victims of hate crimes and incidents.

“As our struggles are set forth in the media, people who disagree with us are expressing that and the result is more hate crimes,” he said. “I hope we don’t see more violence, and I hope we can educate people who don’t understand us.”

In one of the most widely publicized incidents, two men, aged 18 and 20, went looking for gays to fight in Laguna Beach last January, and beat a Vietnamese man so badly that his face was virtually unrecognizable. Both men pleaded guilty to charges arising from the attack. One received a 10-year prison sentence and the other received one year in jail and five years’ probation.

In another incident two months later, a man shouted anti-gay remarks and hurled a Molotov cocktail against the outer wall of a Newport Beach bar as he drove by, causing minor damage. The man, who police say had a lengthy psychiatric history, was committed to an institution.

The statistics released Monday also show that reported incidents involving Jewish victims increased 63%, and incidents with Asian American victims fell by the same percentage.

More than one-third of all cases involved the distribution of racist flyers, the scrawling of swastikas or use of other symbols of skinhead or neo-Nazi groups, the report shows. The Human Relations Commission attributed 45 cases, or one-quarter of the total, to actions related to white supremacist groups.

“We are finding that more and more young people are attaching themselves to hate literature,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. “But it’s not just one school system or one area. It’s a national problem. A hate crime may not leave a physical scar, but it leaves an emotional scar.”

Last year, Southern California was shaken by the arrests of members of the Fourth Reich Skinheads, a group of youths from Orange and Los Angeles counties.

Several members were said to be plotting an attack on the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in South-Central Los Angeles, and had thrown pipe bombs or Molotov cocktails at a number of residences and synagogues, including Temple Beth David synagogue in Westminster. Two were sentenced to lengthy jail terms.

Of the 180 hate crimes and incidents, eight were prosecuted last year using special allegations that a hate crime had been committed, officials say.

The cases had mixed success.

In one instance, an African American suspect shot and robbed a white victim in Orange after telling a friend he was going to get “whitey.” The suspect was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to 17 years in state prison.

In another case, a 26-year-old African American woman and mother of four was beaten to death after an altercation in a La Habra parking lot. Although some witnesses said the suspects used racial slurs during the beating, prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence to include hate crime allegations, because other witnesses said no racial slurs were used. The three suspects pleaded guilty.

Statistics gathered by the Orange County Human Relations Commission may be low, officials say, because some law enforcement agencies are more diligent than others in reporting hate crimes or hate incidents. Many victims never report incidents of hate crimes.

But the news that the overall number has declined pleased members of the Human Relations Commission, says Rusty Kennedy, its executive director.

“Obviously, it’s better that the number is going down than going up,” said Kennedy, who added that “it’s important to remember that this is not a comprehensive report. It’s just what we’ve become aware of. It’s entirely too many (incidents) and we should be concerned about that.”

Hate Crimes Decline

Reported hate crimes and hate-related incidents in Orange County dipped slightly in 1993 from the previous year. While African Americans and Asians were less frequent targets of attacks, the number of incidents involving Jews and gays and lesbians increased.

1993

Group Incidents Gays/lesbians 35 Jews 31 African Americans 29 Asians 15 Latinos 12 Arabs 5 Iranians 4 Whites 4 Multiple victims 45 Total 180

1992

Group Incidents African Americans 61 Asians 41 Gays/lesbians 25 Jews 19 Latinos 12 Whites 7 Arabs 3 Iranian 1 Muslim 1 Jehovah’s Witness 1 Croat 1 American Indian 1 Multiple victims 15 Total 188

Source: Orange County Human Relations Commission