Gay Men Become No. 1 Hate-Crime Targets : Human relations: For the first time, blacks are supplanted as the most frequent victims. Such crimes are up overall, county figures show, but rate of increase slows.

By DENISE HAMILTON

May 10, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

For the first time since the county began keeping track, African Americans have been supplanted by gay men as the leading target of hate crimes, according to the 14th annual report of the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations.

Hate crimes were up 6.4% overall in 1993, although the percentage of increase was smaller than in previous years.

Gay men were targeted in 27% of the 783 hate crimes logged by local law enforcement agencies and community groups in 1993; 22.9% of the hate crimes were directed against blacks and 14.6% were directed against Jews. Whites were fourth. Jews were the targets of 95.8% of hate crimes against religious groups.

Eugene Mornell, the commission’s outgoing executive director, called the report a barometer of public opinion representing the feelings of larger groups who held similar views but did not act on them.

“People are more angry, more willing to confront, willing to chance going out in public and getting caught,” Mornell said.

The report shows that there has been a steady escalation in violence, with assaults now accounting for 43.2% of all hate crimes. Last year, for the first time since the county began keeping records in 1980, more hate crimes were committed in public places than at residences.

Commission officials, who called for stiffer penalties for hate crimes, said the most dramatic increase came in incidents based on sexual orientation, which rose 49.7% from the previous year. Gay rights advocates attributed this to greater willingness by victims to come forward and to a higher public profile about issues such as gays in the military.

“We’re not surprised, but we’re alarmed,” said Liza Culick of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Community Services Center. “There’s been an increased visibility. We’re out there demonstrating, fighting for our rights. That . . . foments hatred.”

Frank Berry, a Los Angeles spokesman for the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said the shift may reflect higher visibility for gays rather than real progress for African Americans.

“Something needs to be done to stop hate crimes across the board and not just against one segment of the population, so that we can look at consistent and steady decreases instead of a few percentage points,” Berry said.

“Whenever the economy is bad, people tend to take out their frustrations on minorities,” he continued. “There needs to be more education for people perpetrating these crimes and also greater enforcement of penalties, because if it’s a slap on the wrist, they won’t think about it twice.”

His concern for enhanced enforcement was echoed by representatives of other racial groups.

“All too often we hear of police showing up to a home where there’s racist graffiti on the wall and the family is told, ‘Oh, it’s only kids,’ ” said Kathy Imahara, a civil rights staff attorney with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center. “That family is not going to report such an incident again.”

Crimes against Asian Americans dropped significantly, from 80 in 1992 to 44 in 1993. But commission officials believe crimes against both Asian Americans and Latinos are underreported because of language problems, cultural barriers and fears of immigration authorities.

Imahara added that hate crimes seem to mirror the issues being debated by politicians and in the media and that anti-Asian sentiment may merely be ebbing this year as other topics attract greater notice.

“There were a lot of things happening in 1992 that were fomenting 50-year-old hatreds. There were the riots, Bush’s trip to Japan, the whole Japan-bashing thing and buying American,” Imahara said.

In 1993, a year in which U.S. politicians increasingly blamed immigrants for the country’s economic woes, about half the crimes logged against Asians and Latinos included anti-immigrant sentiments, Mornell said.

While hate crimes have risen each year since 1985, the percentage of increase has slowed. The county recorded a 22% rise in hate crimes in 1991, a 10% rise in 1992 and 6.4% last year.

The commission report was compiled from hate-crime data provided by nine law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles County, including the Sheriff’s Department, the Los Angeles Police Department and six other city police departments. Mornell said he did not know whether apathy, lack of funding or absence of crimes to report kept other local police agencies from filing, but said he believes the commission report is representative.

In California, the Department of Justice lacks the funds to collect hate crime data from local law enforcement agencies, although it is required to do so by law. Mornell said the commission supports a bill currently under consideration by the state Legislature that would provide $264,000 for that purpose.

Crimes of Hate

For the first time, gay men have supplanted blacks as the leading target of hate crimes, according to the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations. Here is how the number of hate crimes broke down in 1993:

Victims: Gay Men

Hate Crimes: 211

Victims: Blacks

Hate Crimes: 179

Victims: Jews

Hate Crimes: 114

Victims: Whites

Hate Crimes: 112

Victims: Latinos

Hate Crimes: 68

Victims: Asians

Hate Crimes: 44