There have been 110 anti-Semitic crimes reported so far this year, compared to 58 at the same time last year. de Blasio said, is “an unacceptable reality and we’re going to fight it with everything we’ve got.” He said New York has “a different reality in some ways” but the national backdrop has “put everyone on edge and it’s created a lot of division.”Ĭity officials on Tuesday vowed to increase their efforts to reverse the trend, including by opening a new Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes within the mayor’s office this summer.Ĭreated by a law passed by the City Council in January, the new office will be charged with coordinating responses to hate crimes across city agencies, developing prevention strategies and fostering healing for victims. “I think what we’re seeing, unquestionably, is an unleashing of the forces of hate all over this country,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference on Tuesday.
logged 205 hate crimes, nearly double from two years earlier, and Chicago saw hate crimes rise by 26 percent in 2018, according to an analysis by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. In 2018, Los Angeles recorded its highest level of hate crimes in a decade. Other large cities have also seen hate crimes rise. The 75 people arrested so far this year for committing hate crimes, according to the police, “run the gamut,” including young teens, career criminals and the mentally ill, with a variety of motivations, some of them rooted in local disputes.
The incidents in New York City fit a different pattern than what is often seen nationally, in part because far-right and white supremacist groups have less influence in the city, the police said. The increase is being propelled largely by anti-Semitic incidents, which were up 90 percent. As of June 2, there had been 184 hate crimes reported in the city so far this year, a 64 percent increase over the same period in 2018, they said.