Hate Crime Reports Increase 25%

By JOHN M. GONZALES

April 25, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Reported hate crimes in Los Angeles County rose a dramatic 25% in 1996, a figure that human relations experts attribute to better law enforcement efforts and demographic shifts in several cities.

Officials with the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations stressed that the figures are not cause for alarm and instead can be linked to better public awareness and a willingness to report crimes that in years past would have been overlooked.

The commission’s 17th annual hate crime report also found that for the first time, clear clusters of racially motivated crimes were recorded in the Antelope Valley, the Harbor Gateway, Van Nuys and Westchester. The Long Beach and Hollywood areas emerged as pockets of hostility toward gays, according to the report.

Hate crime reports countywide against blacks increased 50% from 1995 to 1996. But again commissioners cautioned that the report “does not say it has become open season on African Americans.” They said it more accurately reflects that as blacks move to areas once populated by other ethnic groups, they face increased animosity. Also, better English skills and access to authorities make them more likely to report than Asians and Latinos, commissioners said.

Reports of racially motivated attacks--combined with a 43% increase in reported hate crimes against gay men, lesbians and bisexuals--and consistent hate crimes against Jewish Americans on the Westside, had commissioners urging reforms.

Of the 995 hate crimes reported, 539 were classified as racial, 338 were classified as sexual orientation offenses, and the rest were apparently motivated by religion or gender.

The report called on the county Board of Supervisors to grant the commission half a million dollars to target problem areas for a conflict resolution effort that would include law enforcement agencies, businesses, churches and community groups.

Commission Executive Director Ron Wakabayashi said working-class communities such as Harbor Gateway and newer communities such as the Antelope Valley often lack the support networks needed to combat hate crimes.

“In places like that, we need to build the response from the ground up,” he said.

The commission also wants to use the money to establish human relations classes and counseling sessions at elementary, middle and high schools.

The commission further asked the supervisors to create a $25,000 reward fund for information leading to the conviction of severe hate crime perpetrators.

Joel Bellman, spokesman for Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, said the commission, which received $958,000 for fiscal 1996-97, will have to appeal for the money during budget hearings early next month.

“I am not minimizing their findings,” he said. “They are a high-priority agency. But there simply is not enough to go around.”

He pointed out that the commission is a monitoring agency and that other organizations within the cash-strapped county, such as the district attorney’s office and Sheriff’s Department, also fight hate crimes.

But despite more diligent recording of the crimes by law enforcement, the report said that some police still ignore hate crimes in isolated incidents because of interagency rivalries, public image concerns for their patrol areas and a desire to dodge the additional investigation needed to document the offenses.

The report called for law enforcement to beef up its hate crime protocols. Robin Toma, a spokesman for the commission, said the Los Angeles Police Department and the Sheriff’s Department were among the police agencies where such underreporting occurred.

Cmdr. Tim McBride of the LAPD said each station has a hate crime coordinator and that department policy requires every hate crime to be reported.

But he acknowledged that the department has also discovered incidents of underreporting.

“We have made great strides in reporting and investigating hate crimes. They’re viewed very seriously . . . and we will ensure that this organization does everything possible to protect people from them,” he said.

Deputy William E. Martin, a spokesman for Sheriff Sherman Block, said the department has dramatically increased reporting and deterred hate crimes through community-based policing efforts.

“We’re not ignoring this. We realize the gravity of the situation,” he said.

The report defined a hate crime as a case in which the facts indicate that hatred or prejudice based on the victim’s race, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender or sexual orientation was a substantial factor in motivating the offense.

Among the report’s findings:

* More than half of all hate crimes were murders, attempted murders, assaults, attempted assaults or rapes.

* More than 79% of hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation were murders, attempted murders, assaults, attempted assaults, rapes or kidnappings.

* Hate crimes motivated by religion increased 9.3%, with 84% of those cases against Jewish individuals and organizations.

* Of the 751 perpetrators in all hate-crime categories whose gender was known, more than 90% were males.

* Crimes at schools, though few, increased 50%.

* Hate crimes against Middle Easterners, though relatively few, increased 25%.

* Inadequate reporting mechanisms for crimes motivated by gender and disabilities continue to result in minimal reports.

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Rise in Hate Crimes

Hate crimes rose 25% in Los Angeles County in 1996, according to an annual survey by the Commission of Human Relations

‘93: 783