Congress Passes Bill To Counter The Rise In Anti-Asian Hate Crimes

Speaker 1: 00:00 In a matter of months, the recognition of anti-Asian violence and racism has moved from the fringes of social awareness to the forefront of American politics. Earlier this week, Congress passed a bill to counter the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. And just yesterday, California's attorney general, Rob Bonta identified, tackling the issue as one of the key goals of his office. 40% of all anti-Asian hate crimes in America, between March of 2020 and 2021 occurred in California. And as the nation continues to reconcile with the issue, the pressure is on local leaders and law enforcement to address the ongoing violence. Joining us today is San Diego County district attorney summer Stephan da Stephan. Welcome. Speaker 2: 00:45 Thank you. Thanks for covering this important topic. Speaker 1: 00:48 So recognition of this issue was slow going at first, but has since gained a lot of momentum to become one of the leading issues this nation is looking to address, what is your office doing to address the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes here locally? Speaker 2: 01:02 Well, we began addressing this early on. We noticed, uh, even as early as April and may of 2020, when the COVID pandemic began and some of the false narratives were being put out there that encouraged hate against the API community. We noticed a rise in incidents and then arise in hate crimes, targeting our API communities. We track this data very carefully. So we talked with the different communities that are affected, and we worked with law enforcement and inside our office to take definitive action that has actually become, uh, a, a model that is being looked at to enhance transparency and increase communication and reporting to law enforcement. Speaker 1: 01:56 This is a federal bill, but what will the impact be locally? What tools will it provide your office with exactly, uh, to prosecute these crimes? Speaker 2: 02:05 Well, the bill, uh, tries to support the reporting by communities and also the training and additional resources for law enforcement and prosecutors to tackle this issue for us here in San Diego, fighting hate crimes has always been a priority for me. So I aligned my resources to meet that priority. And in that regard, we've tripled our hate crimes prosecutions in San Diego County. And so we establish an online platform. First, I believe in the nation to be able to report these receiving over 125 ports, Speaker 1: 02:50 What's made prosecuting hate crimes difficult. And is there anything in this legislation that changes that Speaker 2: 02:56 There's nothing I could see in the legislation directly changes, uh, the challenges in, uh, fighting and prosecuting hate crimes, but it does provide the ability to do more training. You have more resources, more expertise, which will help in the long run. The challenges with hate crimes is that it is under-reported. It is one of the most under reported crimes. And one of the reasons is the definitions and the clarity about what is, and isn't a hate crime. And that creates barriers Speaker 1: 03:38 Earlier this year, your office drew some criticism from community advocates for the decision to prosecute the assault of an elderly Filipino woman as elder abuse, rather than a hate crime. Given the recent developments on addressing anti-Asian hate. Do you think your office will take any different approaches and classifying hate crimes in the future? Speaker 2: 03:58 We would classify hate crimes under the law aggressively. And clearly as we have been doing that three cases that were submitted as hate crimes, we've charged as hate crimes. Other cases that were submitted as known hate crimes, like the incident, uh, involving the egg blowing and pushing of black lives matter protesters in Imperial beach, we were able to develop the case into a hate wines. Some cases under the law was still not meet the hate crimes definition, but they will need other definitions that allow us to take account and accountability. Like the elder abuse statute. Sometimes a San Diego has 13% of our API community and they are, uh, sometimes victims of crime because they are victims of those crimes and not necessarily because of their race or ethnicity. And we still handle those cases and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. We just cannot do it under the hate crimes allegation. Speaker 1: 05:14 The early focus on these crimes was in other major California cities, particularly in San Francisco and Oakland, since then the organization stop AAPI hate has collected dozens of reports of violence in San Diego County. How have you responded to that? And how do you think local recognition and action on the issue has changed in recent months? Speaker 2: 05:38 It is absolutely encouraging and, and uplifting to see the work that the API API hate, uh, coalitions have done in San Diego. This is exactly what we need. It is about community partnership. This is how we beat this as hand in hand, bringing the law enforcement resources, bringing the expert prosecutors and victim advocates from the DA's office and working hand in hand with the communities and the voices of the communities, because the reality is that the under-reporting, uh, for us to come up and rise, it is by having the community speak up with a central message. I've walked, I've been on these panels with the API community, antihero coalitions. And, um, the thing that we together bring to the forefront is if you allow a hate crime to happen against you and don't report it or hate incident, that abuser will move on to another victim. And the next time it could be worse and it could be a victim that is not able to withstand it can cause lifelong trauma. And so we asked together the community and, and our office for the community to rise up and report so that we can protect everyone and make sure that bullies are stopped. Bullies do not stop on their own. You have to stop. Speaker 1: 07:20 I've been speaking with San Diego County district attorney summer, Stephan da Stephan. Thank you. Speaker 2: 07:25 Thank you so much. Good to speak with you.