LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hate crimes in Los Angeles hit the city's highest levels since 2002 as the number of reported incidents rose 10%, officials said.
Reported hate crimes increased from 292 incidents in 2018 to 322 in 2019, according to a city report. Hate crimes in Los Angeles have been rising since 2013.
Councilman David Ryu released the most recent data Wednesday at a meeting of the council's Public Safety Committee. The numbers came from the police department, Ryu said. The Los Angeles Police Department could not immediately confirm the data Thursday.
Brian Levin, director of California State University's Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, said the 2019 figure is the highest since 2002, when 354 hate crimes were reported. The year before, the city's high of 559 hate crimes were reported in Los Angeles.
Anti-Semitic crimes alone rose more than 60% from 2018 to 2019 and represented the largest single category of targets, according to Ryu's data. The second-largest single category, anti-black crimes, increased 11.5% over the last year.
The councilman's announcement follows last week's release of 2019 citywide crime data, in which overall homicides dipped from 260 in 2018 to 253 in 2019. Violent crime is down 5.5%, and property crime dipped 7.4%.
