Hate crimes rise in California, state report says
SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ California is seeing an increase in hate crimes.
There were 931 incidents in 2016, an 11.2 percent spike over 2015, the state Department of Justice reported Monday.
More than half of those involved bias based on race, ethnicity or national origin. The second-most-common incidents were based on sexual orientation.
Race-based hate crimes jumped 21.3 percent, the report said.
State Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the report is consistent with findings of an increase in national hate crimes motivated by biases against racial minorities, Muslims, people with disabilities, women, immigrants and the LGBTQ community.
"When someone commits a crime motivated by hate, it is not just an attack on one innocent person, but an attack on the entire State and our communities," Becerra said in a statement. "We can see from today's report that words matter, and discriminatory rhetoric does not make us stronger but divides us and puts the safety of our communities at risk."
_Los Angeles Times
