Hate crimes in California dip in 2018 after 2017 bump

Reporting from Sacramento —  The number of reported hate crimes and victims decreased last year in California, although the number of suspects increased, the state’s attorney general reported Tuesday.

Hate crime events fell 2.5% from 2017, down by about two dozen reports to 1,066 in 2018, according to the annual report.

That follows a 17% jump the prior year.

The state defines hate crimes as those targeting victims because of their race or ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender or a disability. The definitions have been expanded at various times in recent years. Each hate crime event can include more than one related offense against more than one victim by more than one offender.

The report notes that hate crimes remain relatively rare in a state of nearly 40 million people. Overall, they have dropped about 3% in the last decade.

There were 80 more suspects identified last year than the year before.

The report comes a year after Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra provided more guidance for local law enforcement and created a hate crimes prevention web page and brochure on identifying and reporting hate crimes. The increased outreach came after a critical state audit largely blamed the department for not requiring that local agencies do a better job in collecting data, resulting in undercounts.

Anti-Islamic events dropped from 46 in 2017 to 28 last year, the new report says. But those targeting Jews increased from 104 to 126 last year.

Earlier this year, authorities said a 19-year-old gunman told investigators he was motivated by hatred for Judaism when he killed one woman and wounded two others, including a rabbi, at the Chabad of Poway synagogue near San Diego. That shooting in April will be reflected in next year’s report.

There were no hate-related murders reported in 2018, but one rape, 39 robberies and nearly 800 reports of assaults and intimidation. Yet violent and property offenses related to hate crimes both dipped, with 838 violent and 426 property crimes reported last year. That was down from 860 violent and 451 property crimes a year earlier.

Hate crimes based on race or sexual orientation both fell overall. But crimes against Latinos were up from 126 in 2017 to 149 last year, while those against blacks dropped from 302 to 276.

There were 238 reports of hate crimes based on sexual orientation, down eight from the prior year.

Federal authorities have estimated that more than half of all hate crimes aren’t reported to police across the United States.

The Associated Press found three years ago that more than 2,700 city police and county sheriff’s departments nationwide had not reported any hate crimes for the FBI’s annual crime tally during the previous six years, or about 17% of all city and county law enforcement agencies.