Bringing Hate Crime Out for an Airing

She was 73, in a wheelchair and spoke with a thick accent that made it difficult for everyone to hear all her story. But she was the first speaker to keep the room spellbound at a hearing on hate crimes in Santa Ana on Wednesday.

Seven years ago, the Lake Forest woman from Yugoslavia said, she was sexually molested during a medical exam. She reported it as a hate crime but felt the authorities did almost nothing about it.

Tragic as this crime was, would it actually qualify as a hate crime? You bet, said Fred Persily, who’s made a career of studying hate crimes.

“Gender-based crimes are among the least reported of hate crimes,” Persily said. “Many don’t understand that it is a hate crime.”

Underreporting of hate crimes was the central issue for the hearing, held at the Orange County Human Relations Commission. It was conducted by the attorney general’s civil rights commission on hate crimes. It’s preparing a report on what can be done to improve hate crime reporting.

Persily has attended seven such hearings so far; 21 are planned before the report is prepared in the fall.

“If we’ve done our job, hate crime reporting will improve,” Persily said. “At least we can create a better infrastructure for reporting these crimes.”

Persily has mostly just listened. But he’s an educator on the subject too. When producers for ABC-TV’s “20/20” program wanted his help in a piece portraying Huntington Beach as the hate crime capital of America, he corrected them:

“It’s not the capital for hate crimes,” he told them. “It’s just one of the cities doing a better job of getting hate crimes reported.”

Bigotry: Alive and Well

No one at Wednesday’s hearing could say decisively just how underreported hate crimes are. But agreement was widespread that those reported are far outnumbered by those that aren’t.

Brian Levin, who runs a hate crimes program for Cal State San Bernardino, testified at the hearing that the annual reporting numbers for Orange County cities over 100,000 population look like “0,0,2,3,1.” Yet the city of Boston reports more than 400 hate crimes annually.

“Either Orange County is a whole lot nicer place to live than Boston, or we’re not doing as well reporting hate crimes,” Levin said.

Clearly from the testimony, we share some of Boston’s problems. One after another testified that bigotry in Orange County is alive and well. Multiple reasons were given why these crimes go unreported.

The police, well represented at the hearing, had to endure a friendly but still biting tongue-lashing. Speakers from diverse groups all talked about hate crime victims intimidated by police officers’ lack of sensitivity.

Brea Police Chief Bill Lantini pointed out that the police have learned much about hate crimes the past few years and that all his officers now undergo hate crimes training.

That’s great, someone pointed out, but barriers between police and minorities are hard to break down when there has been a history of insensitivity by police.

True, Lantini responded, “We’re not just battling stereotypes, we’re battling history. What we can do now is do the right thing consistently.”

Sometimes it’s not the police departments’ fault; some victims are just plain intimidated. Some fear deportation, others that what they relate will not seem important enough for action.

“The main fear some people have is that the police will not understand their accent,” said Hans Bundakji, representing the Islamic Society of Orange County.

Bundakji recently was appointed as a chaplain at the Garden Grove Police Department. He’s convinced it’s improved relations, because “now when a Muslim or Arab calls, they feel like at least there is someone they can relate to.”

It was Barbara Muirhead, representing gay and lesbian concerns, who brought up a point that’s key to the commission’s mission:

Hate incidents, she said, are just as serious as hate crimes.

“These incidents need to be reported more, before they become more serious,” Muirhead suggested.

That’s what’s going on in Laguna Beach, where Police Chief James Spreine has ordered his officers to document incidents, even if a crime isn’t involved. Spreine, who attended Wednesday’s hearing, said it stems from a gay man reporting what he thought was a hate crime to the Laguna Beach police; in fact, it was just verbal jousting.

“That young man left our department feeling like we were insensitive to his needs,” Spreine said. “It’s changed the way we look at things.”

Spreine’s policy has become controversial, especially among freedom of speech advocates who don’t believe the cops should show up on your doorstep just because you express an opinion someone doesn’t like.

Persily has shared a similar concern and said he wants to meet with the American Civil Liberties Union before addressing Spreine’s approach in his report.

By hearing’s end, however, Persily said he found the testimony “tremendously impressive,” and it taught him something new.

Several speakers criticized homeowner associations for showing bias against minorities. Persily said it’s a subject that hasn’t come up at any of the previous hearings.

But lack of hate crime reporting by the schools has permeated all the hearings, he said. He added: “The difficulty will be coming up with a broad-based report, which will represent both Orange County and places like Redding.”

By the way, the woman in the wheelchair needn’t worry anymore about nobody listening to her. After the hearing, she was swarmed by those interested, including a sheriff’s investigator.

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Monday and Thursday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling (714) 966-7789 or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com.