By: Ilana Siyance
This year New York City experienced a record increase in hate crimes, with Manhattan leading the way.
As reported by the NY Post, the NYPD comp stat figures have been released, painting a dismal picture. In Manhattan there were 199 hate incidents, making the borough the city’s hot spot for hate crimes this year. Of those, 134 occurred in Midtown’s Manhattan South precinct, according to NYPD statistics through Dec. 12.
Brooklyn was the next leader on the hate scoreboard, with 119 bias crimes reported. Queens followed with 102 incidents. The Bronx had 44 reported crimes and Staten Island had 17 filed.
In total, the five borough of NYC saw 514 hate crimes so far this year. That is up 98 percent from the 260 incidents recorded in 2020. This year’s figure is higher than any year since 2013, when the department began recording the hate crimes.
As per the Post, NYPD details were available for 481 of the crimes, showing that 55 of the incidents were felony assaults and 11 were robberies.
Anti-Semitic crimes had the highest total number, and rose alarmingly. There were 191 incidents against Jews reported in 2021, up 49 percent from the 128 cases logged last year. “The increase in anti-Semitic bias incidents in our city is unacceptable and our elected leaders need to get serious about investing in real, long-term solutions,” said Leo Ferguson, director of strategic projects for Jews For Racial & Economic Justice. In an incident last week, a homeless man allegedly drew swastikas on Wall Street’s Charging Bull sculpture.
The biggest jump in hate crimes toward any sect, was against Asians. In 2021, 131 incidents were reported against Asians, up from just 28 cases in 2020 — a whopping 368% increase. The increase has been spurred by the pandemic, which is believed to have originated in Wuhan, China. “I’ve never seen it this bad,” said Wellington Chen, executive director of Chinatown’s Business Improvement District. “We have never been so conscious that we are Asian. That is the sadness for us…”
Hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation increased to 85 incidents in 2021, compared to 29 last year, marking a 193 percent increase. Anti-white incidents increased to 20 up from 10. There were 12 Anti-Muslim incidents, up from four last year; and eight reported crimes against Hispanics, up from zero in 2020.
Two categories experiences declines in hate incidents: anti-black crimes fell 14 percent, to 30 from 35; and crimes motivated by “religion,” dropped to 8 from 12, in a 33 percent decline, as per NYPD data.