Hate Crimes In US Reach Highest Level In More Than A Decade

Speaker 1: 00:00 A report released by the FBI this week showed hate crimes in 2019 Rose to the highest level. In more than a decade, there were 51 murders motivated by hate the FBI reported, including 22 people killed in the El Paso Wal-Mart shooting in which the suspect said he targeted Mexicans joining me to put a local focus on this phenomenon is deputy district attorney Leonard trend, the lead hate crimes prosecutor in San Diego County. Welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. The incidents of hate crimes is increasing across the United States. What is the case here in San Diego? Is the County seeing more hate crimes this year? Speaker 2: 00:36 Yeah, we actually, the last two years I've seen a pretty marked increase in hate crimes that are committed, um, in 2016 and 2017, the number of cases that were prosecuted by our office were, uh, around 14, 13 per year. But the last two years, uh, we prosecuted 30 hate crimes in each of those years. Speaker 1: 00:57 And, uh, we all have kind of a general idea of what a hate crime is, but what makes a crime a hate crime? Legally, Speaker 2: 01:04 When we look at hate crimes, what we're looking for is the motivation for why that crime is committed. And if that motivation is, uh, based on a bias against the victims, uh, race, ethnicity, or nationality, their sexual orientation, their religion, their gender, or their disability, that's what qualifies it as a hate crime in California. Speaker 1: 01:26 And, uh, is it, uh, difficult to get the evidence and prove these types of crimes compared with other crimes? It's a, it sounds like it's a challenge. Speaker 2: 01:35 Yeah. So when, whenever we talk about motive, we're trying to get into the head of, of the person who's committing the crime. And so, uh, oftentimes the only evidence that we have is what they say, uh, while they're committing the crime. If there's a use of a slur of some kind, that's some indication, uh, obviously if we have, uh, access to, uh, social media or, uh, electronic evidence that can also show that it was biased, motivated, that tends to be helpful. But if the, if the offender doesn't say anything, uh, during the course of the assault, then we don't have any indication that, that something is a hate crime. Speaker 1: 02:11 What kinds of crimes do we see here? Most often the shooting at the Poway synagogue in April, 2019 was notorious of course, but what about some that don't make such big news? Speaker 2: 02:22 Yeah, most of them do tend to be assaulted in nature or at least threatening in nature. So, um, you know, throwing a punch at someone, um, brandishing a weapon, uh, or verbally threatening, threatening to kill someone, those are kind of the classic, uh, hate crimes that we see. We do see a fair amount of property crimes as well. Uh, so vandalisms, um, mostly, uh, like graffiti type things where, um, hateful messages are spray painted on churches and or schools that are meant to intimidate. Uh, either people attending the houses of worship or, or the schools. Speaker 1: 02:57 And now who's committing these crimes or groups, or the individuals are terribly organized, Speaker 2: 03:03 At least from what we've seen in, in San Diego, they do tend to be committed by, uh, by solo people who, who may have some, uh, interactions with other hate groups, uh, on social media platforms, but there doesn't appear to be any coordination or anything like that. Speaker 1: 03:20 And San Diego County is home to at least seven hate groups, according to the Southern poverty law. Center's 2018 map of such groups, uh, which groups are operating here. Speaker 2: 03:30 Well, the Southern poverty law center, um, like you said, highlighted, uh, seven different groups, mountain minute men, uh, the realist, uh, report mass resistance, um, American identity movement, which used to be identity Europa, uh, has been around as well. Um, and so those are some of the ones that have been identified, uh, by SPLC Speaker 1: 03:54 And does this ebb and flow over time. I'm reminded of, uh, of, uh, Tom Metzger who was, uh, who died recently. His obituary made natural national news. And of course he was a white supremacist out in East County and was operating for a long time. Uh, do you see this kind of ebb and flow over time? Speaker 2: 04:12 Yeah, they, they do, um, you know, sometimes groups change names like, like the, uh, American identity movement. Um, sometimes they change names, sometimes they merge with other groups, um, but they do sort of ebb and flow as far as their activity, uh, and the types of, um, recruitment efforts that they, that they take, uh, to try and get new members. Speaker 1: 04:34 Now, the group defend East County was in the news during the election season. And are there groups that you monitor and to kind of keep an eye on or, uh, they don't really cross the line. It might get tricky there. It seems to me as a lay person. Speaker 2: 04:49 Yeah. So there are always groups that we pay attention to just because you're a member of, one of those groups doesn't mean that you're automatically every crime that you commit is going to be a hate crime. We still have to develop evidence that's tied to that specific person and what the motivation is for that person when they commit a crime. So just near membership, isn't enough. What we're really looking for are things that, that particular person, the suspect, um, you know, what they say, what they do, uh, the types of engagement that they personally have with those groups that they indicate that they're bias, motivated, um, but mere membership by itself, you know, doesn't always mean that the crimes that are committed are hate crimes, Speaker 1: 05:27 And I wanted to bring up the political climate. The man I referenced earlier killed 22 people at the Walmart in El Paso last year, he was believed to have posted a racist anti-immigrant screed before going to El Paso from his Dallas home to quote, kill Mexicans. And he was going to defend the country against an invasion. According to authorities that echoes president Trump's warning is of migrant caravans, uh, invading the U S ahead of the 2018 elections. How connected is the rise in hate crimes to polarized us Speaker 2: 05:58 When things become normalized, or when we see things in the media, um, people tend to adopt those beliefs. And so, uh, while it may not be tied to our particular, you know, tweet or something that the president says, when more people hear that stuff and they repeat it themselves, it gained some sort of normalcy. And so for someone like Patrick Crucis, um, the El Paso shooter, if he's hearing things that are very anti-immigrant in the news, um, he's going to start believing that he's not alone in having those beliefs and, uh, start to be emboldened by, by those beliefs and move to action. Speaker 1: 06:36 For example, D we see a rise in hate crimes during the election. Speaker 2: 06:40 We do actually, that is one thing that we do see every four years, and it's mostly tied to presidential politics, presidential elections, and, you know, there's a whole bunch of different possible, possible explanations for why that, why that is politics does tend to be divisive on its own. But then when you have elections, especially national elections, where immigration comes up or, you know, things that really divide us as a country, uh, when they're at the center, uh, of, of debates and, and national discourse, it does give rise to especially race-based hate crimes. We see a spike in it every four years, and that's been true in 2016, 2012, 2008, 2004. And beyond, Speaker 1: 07:24 I've been speaking with lender, Trin of San Diego County prosecutor, dealing with hate crimes. Thanks very much for joining us today. No problem. Thank you for having me.