Hate Crime Incidents Are Down Slightly for 1998, Report Says

State Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer on Monday released statewide statistics on 1998 hate crimes before announcing the creation of an advisory commission and a new strategy to combat the problem.

Lockyer was flanked by local politicians, law enforcement and civil rights leaders as he spoke at a news conference at the Museum of Tolerance in West Los Angeles.

“Whether hatemongers use gun violence, arson or other illegal means to spread their poison, we in law enforcement and communities throughout California must respond swiftly and make it clear that such behavior will not be tolerated,” Lockyer said. “We must turn our outrage over recent tragedies into action that increases respect for diversity.”

The 1,750 hate crime incidents compiled by the state Department of Justice in 1998 from state law enforcement agencies represent a slight decline in overall numbers from the previous years.

Lockyer said he had been waiting for the moment to release the information when he heard about the bloody rampage at the Jewish community center in Granada Hills Aug. 10. White supremacist Buford O. Furrow Jr., a 37-year-old mechanic from Washington state, is accused of killing a Filipino American postal carrier in Chatsworth after wounding three children, a teenage counselor and a receptionist at a community center.

“I guess you could now call this the news peg,” Lockyer said.

Lockyer said he was establishing a state Civil Rights Commission on Hate Crimes, and he named Oakland civil rights crusader Fred Korematsu as its honorary chairman.

In addition, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante today plans to announce the creation of another state commission to address intolerance and hate crimes, and to lobby for legislation on both issues. Among the members of the new body, to be called Commission for One California, will be law enforcement officers, teachers and leaders in minority communities.

Lockyer also called for the rapid deployment of Department of Justice resources to assist local and federal law enforcement agencies when hate crimes involve serious injury, death or significant destruction of property.

Last week’s incident in the San Fernando Valley and an earlier reported hate crime in Redding in which a gay couple were murdered are only two examples of a much deeper problem, Lockyer said.

“The list goes on and on of the venom that is all too prevalent in our society,” he said.

To crack down on hate crimes, Lockyer said, the Justice Department plans to use its resources to help local and federal agencies investigate, prosecute and convict those who break the law.

In 1998, Lockyer said, law enforcement agencies reported that there were 2,136 victims of hate crimes, and 1,985 people were suspected of committing them.

In Orange County, the number of such crimes fell from 98 in 1997 to 83 last year, according to state figures. Yet the number of victims actually rose slightly over the same period, from 107 to 114.

The new Civil Rights Commission on Hate Crimes will advise the attorney general on finding ways to improve diversity, train law enforcement officers and monitor extremist hate groups. One of its first tasks, Lockyer said, will be to analyze the state’s current system of reporting hate crimes.

Since 1995, when the state began compiling hate crime information, the number of reported incidents has ranged from a high of 2,054 in 1996 to last year’s low of 1,750. A spokeswoman for the attorney general said that the numbers are not totally reliable because the methods of reporting crimes often vary from agency to agency and the data have not been collected long enough to indicate any strong trends.

Statewide, nearly half of all those charged with a hate crime were convicted, but district attorneys filed complaints in only 244 hate incidents statewide in 1998.

“We can do more, we can do something as citizens to make sure police catch [criminals] before they commit crimes,” said Korematsu, a longtime civil rights activist.

During World War II, Korematsu’s legal challenges to civilian exclusion orders helped spur the redress movement for Japanese Americans. He won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, last year.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Museum of Tolerance, said that more strategies have to be devised to combat hate crimes.

Times staff writer Jack Leonard contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Hate Crimes

The state Department of Justice said that 1,750 hate crimes were reported by California law enforcement agencies last year--nearly five incidents per day.