LOS ANGELES (CNS) - The number of hate crimes reported to police in Los Angeles rose 10.8 percent in 2017, the fourth consecutive increase and part of a state and national trend that has seen a spike in such reports over the past several years, according to a study released today.
The study, conducted by the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, consisted of a national sample of over three dozen large American cities, including 10 in California.
Long Beach saw its hate-crime reports double in 2017, and San Diego saw a 17-percent increase.
Riverside and San Bernardino were the only California cities in the study that saw a decrease in hate crimes reported last year. Overall, the study showed a 12-percent increase in hate-crime reports nationwide in 2017, which follows a 5-percent increase in 2016.
California, however, has seen its hate-crime reports increase at a higher rate than the national figures, including a 19-percent rise in 2017. The CSUSB study records a 64 percent increase from 2014 to 2017 for the 10 California cities studied. In Los Angeles, 254 hate crimes were reported in 2017.
African-Americana and Jews were the most frequently targeted, but the city also had a significant rise in anti-transgender attacks. It was the largest number of reported hate crimes the city has seen since 2008, when the city recorded 280 hate crimes.
The most common type of offenses were property damage/vandalism (82); simple assault (53); aggravated assault (46) and criminal threat (44).
Among the cities studied, Los Angeles was second only to New York (339) in total hate-crime reports in 2017.