SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KERO) — New numbers from California's attorney general office showed an increase in hate crimes across the state last year. The report claims the state saw 1,330 hate crimes in 2020 compared to 1,015 crimes in 2019. That's an increase of 31%.
According to Attorney General Rob Bonta a large increase of those crimes targeted African-Americans.
"Overall hate crimes are at their highest level in more than a decade. Hate crimes are also up towards the AAPPI community. Another stark finding, hate crimes against Blacks were the most prevalent in California increasing 87 percent."
Bonta says he recognizes that hate crimes tend to be underreported and the number of crimes is likely higher.
As a part of 23ABC's commitment to providing context into stories that matter we broke down the report.
The report does say hate crimes against African-Americans increased 87 percent. There was a 38 percent increase in hate crimes against Latinos, while Asian-Americans saw roughly a 48 percent increase. Anti-white hate crimes saw an increase of roughly 47 percent.
Hate crimes against a religious group or sexual orientation decreased.
