A man in San Pedro shouted a racial slur and chucked a glass bottle at a Black bus driver on her break. A trans woman getting off the Metro in Koreatown was told she belonged in hell. A father on his way to a Tarzana synagogue was interrupted by a man threatening to “kill all of you Jews.”
The grim encounters were among the record-breaking number of hate crimes that took place across L.A. County last year, an increase fueled by an onslaught of harassment directed at Jewish, Black and LGBTQ+ people, according to a county report released Wednesday.
The report from the county’s Commission on Human Relations found 1,350 reported hate crimes — up 45% from the year before. It’s the highest level since the commission began counting in 1980.
“I will tell you I was shocked to learn that,” said Robin Toma, the commission’s executive director, at a Wednesday news conference announcing the results.
Toma called the figure “historic,” potentially the result of both better outreach by the commission and rising levels of vitriol directed at the county’s minorities.
Hate crimes across the county have been trending up since 2014, but last year’s tally of more than 1,300 incidents marked a significant jump. In 2022, the commission recorded 930 incidents.
The previous high had been 1,031 hate crimes in 2001, the year of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“It is unacceptable,” said Sheriff Robert Luna. “I promise you as the sheriff of this county that we are going to respond.”
The county’s newly-elected District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who campaigned on restoring public safety, rebuked his predecessor for failing to prosecute hate crimes and pledged to “send an increasingly clear message to the hate criminals.”
“I don’t see prosecution here,” said Hochman. “I don’t see consequences.”
Jewish and transgender people saw some of the most significant increases. The report counted 99 hate crimes against transgender people — a 125% jump. Nearly all were violent. These incidents included a trans woman attacked by two men and called a slur while carrying her groceries in South Los Angeles and another trans woman physically assaulted in Koreatown.
“This is obviously unacceptable,” said Bamby Salcedo, a transgender activist whose organization, TransLatin@ Coalition, received multiple bomb threats earlier this year.
Hates crimes against Jewish people nearly doubled to 242 incidents. Many were cases of vandalism, such as graffitied swastikas. The county has seen a number of Jewish-owned businesses vandalized since the eruption of the Israel-Hamas war 14 months ago.
Anti-Muslim crimes increased from 7 to 19, according to the report. The authors also noted 5% of all hate crimes involved “language regarding conflict in the Middle East.”
Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and a member of the California Commission on the State of Hate, said the findings match up with what he saw in big cities across America last year, all of which saw jumps in hate crimes against Jewish people, Muslims, Latinos, and LGBTQ people.
For the first time, he said, Jewish people had become “the most targeted group” in the 10 largest U.S. cities.
He also noted the new data provided by the commission could force the state to change its findings released this summer that overall hate crime in California had decreased by 7.1% in 2023 from 2022 levels.
The state had used incomplete data from the LAPD , Levin said, and the new county report includes nearly 700 more hate crimes than what was taken into account by the attorney general’s report. With the new incidents factored in, Levin said, overall hate crime in California didn’t drop, but instead increased by about 25 percent.
“I’ve been waiting months for this to happen,” said Levin. “The headlines were all 7.1% decrease — I said ‘No, no, no.’”
The Attorney General’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
There were small silver linings buried in the findings. Speakers noted the increase in hate crimes was likely fueled by improved reporting thanks to a county campaign to encourage people to report. And a smaller portion of the hate crimes was violent — 65% compared with 72% in 2022.
All five county supervisors denounced the startling rise. Supervisor Hila Solis, who helped create the reporting campaign, called the data “a sobering wake up.”
“I have to say I’m not proud of the Metro center I represent, where many of these crimes have centered,” Solis said at the news conference, adding she was aware of the fast-approaching Olympics when the region will be flooded with visitors from across the globe.
The county’s Metro region, stretching from West Hollywood to Boyle Heights, had the most reported hate crimes, followed by the San Fernando Valley, according to the report. Many of the crimes took place in schools — about one tenth of the total — and on public transit.
Nearly half of the total hate crimes were racial crimes, with Black people disproportionately the target of attack.
Despite making up about 9% of the county population, Black people were the targets of half of racial hate crimes. There were 320 crimes against Black people — an all time high and an 8% increase from 2022.
Supervisor Holly Mitchell, the only Black woman on the Board of Supervisors, said she was discouraged but unsurprised by the report; she said she experiences a “microaggression every single day.”
“I am deeply concerned that the next report will be even worse,” said Mitchell. “We know the polarization of all things related to ‘wokeness’ or ‘DEI’ is front and center in our national discussion,” she said, referring to programs encouraging diversity, equity and inclusion.
Hate crimes against Latino people increased by 19% to 144 — another all-time high. After a dip in 2022, Anti-Asian crimes rose again to 80 victims — the second highest number ever recorded.
