L.A. County sees its lowest tally of hate crimes in 24 years

Los Angeles County saw the fewest number of hate crimes reported in 24 years in 2013, but black residents made up the overwhelming majority of victims despite making up less than 10% of the population, according to an annual report released Wednesday by the Commission on Human Relations.

There was plenty of good news in the report: hate crimes based on sexual orientation dropped 27% last year, and Jews saw the lowest instances of anti-Semitic crimes in a decade. But the commission noted that the county still averages more than one hate crime a day.

The report also came with a major caveat: The vast majority of hate crimes are never reported or are not classified as hate crimes by police departments, according to the commission.

The 384 hate crimes reported in the county in 2013 was the lowest total since record-keeping began in 1980, and blacks, Latinos, Jews and members of the LGBT community were victims of fewer hate crimes than in 2012.

But with 140 hate crimes reported against them, blacks still made up more than one-third of the hate crime victims last year.

Some long-held patterns persisted: Blacks and Latinos targeted each other with disturbing consistency.

“The great majority of African Americans and Latinos in L.A. County coexist peacefully and are not involved in ongoing racial conflict,” the report states. “However, for many years this report has documented that most hate crimes against African Americans are committed by Latino suspects and vice versa.”

The pattern is prevalent in communities where Latinos are moving into traditionally black neighborhoods, the report states. The influence of the Mexican Mafia prison gang, which has waged war with black inmates, has played a significant role as Latino gang members target black gang members and, sometimes, innocent bystanders, the commission said.

When hate crimes against blacks were reported in 2013, Latinos were the suspects 62% of the time. When the victim was Latino, the suspect was black 71% of the time. In these incidents, a majority of the Latino suspects were gang members but that was not the case for the black suspects.

The biggest decrease involved Jewish victims. Forty-two such hate crimes were reported last year, down 48%. But Jews remain the most targeted religious group for hate crimes in the county by a big margin.

“It remains troubling that year after year the overwhelming majority of hate crimes motivated by religion in Los Angeles County, statewide and across the country is against Jews and Jewish institutions,” said Amanda Susskind, the Anti-Defamation League’s Pacific Southwest regional director.

But compared with other groups, the rate of violent hate crimes against Jews was low, the ADL noted. Incidents of intimidation and vandalism involving such acts as the spray-painting of a swastika can be considered hate crimes, but they are not considered violent.

When it comes to violence, gender and sexual orientation were by far the largest factors. About 95% of hate crimes based on gender were violent, followed by hate crimes based on sexual orientation (71%); race-based hate crimes were violent about 61% of the time.

Twitter: @josephserna