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Hate crimes rise in Los Angeles, report says

by Greg Mellen

LOS ANGELES - Two middle-age gay men beaten near the Center in Long Beach in a high-profile case, a black man in metro Los Angeles chased down and set upon by seven Latinos. These were among the 489 crimes reported as being spurred by bias or prejudice in the 2011 Hate Crimes Report, released Wednesday by the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations.

After three straight years of dramatic declines, reported hate crimes rose in Los Angeles for the first time last year, although they remained well below the average for the past 20 years, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations.

Reported hate crimes last year jumped 14.5 percent from 427 to 489, which is still the second lowest number since before 1990.

Although experts say only a handful of potential hate crimes are reported as such, those that are paint "a vivid picture of hatred," said Kathy Feng, president of the commission.

"This is surprising after (hate crimes) fell dramatically for three years,"

Robin Toma, executive director of the Commission on Human Relations, said of the uptick. "This is also counter to a 4 percent drop in the state."

Regionally, despite Halloween attacks on two gay men last year, Long Beach and the South Bay actually saw a reduction in reported hate crimes from 50 to 39, a reduction of 22 percent. The two assailants, Marquise Anton Lucas, 19, and Sierus Lamar Dunbar, 27, both pleaded no contest to felony assault, and were sentenced to terms enhanced as hate crime.

Toma said the reduction in the Long Beach and South Bay areas were positive signs that partnerships between groups such as the Center and California Conference on Equality and Justice are paying dividends in lowering the rate of hate crimes.

The San Fernando Valley had the highest number of reported hate crimes, with 134 last year, up from 109 in 2010, an increase of 23 percent.

Toma said San Fernando Valley showed that in addition to the high numbers, the Valley had a wide diversity of hate crimes spread across religious, racial and even white supremacist categories.

"That tells us that broad work needs to be done," Toma said of educating residents about tolerance.

The number in the San Gabriel Valley went up from 32 to 39, up 22 percent last year.

Although the San Fernando Valley had the highest number of reported hate crimes, it ranked third in percentage at 6 per 100,000 residents, behind the Metro area (10.7) and Antelope Valley (9.4)

According to the report, all major categories of hate crimes increased in L.A. County.

Crimes based on race, national origin and sexual orientation rose 13 percent, while religiously motivated crimes jumped 24 percent.

Toma cautioned that some of the numbers can be skewed.

For example, while the percentage of religious hate crimes increased 24 percent from 76 to 94, Toma said 10 of those 18 crimes were committed by a serial vandal who painted swastikas in Santa Monica.

Although Toma agreed the small sample size of reported hate crimes could potentially skew data in a single year, the trend over 20 years, particularly the consistent fall in hate crimes since 2001 from a high of 1,031 is statistically compelling.

He said it also shows that his group's efforts to combat hate crimes, particularly in educating youth, have been effective.

Or as Amanda Susskind , regional director of the Anti-Defamation League said, "If there's a takeaway from this (for kids) it's that hate is not hip."

Along the racial divide the results were mixed. Blacks were the most targeted group for hate crimes, 60 percent, despite only making up 8 percent of the population, according to Toma. Anti-black crime rose 24 percent. In addition, 65 percent of black victims were targeted by Latinos.

Conversely, anti-Latino crime fell 34 percent to its lowest numbers more than a decade. This was mirrored by a statewide drop of 26 percent. In addition, the percentage of Latino victims targeted by blacks fell from 68 percent to 41 percent.

Another positive result is that violent hate crimes were down, with simple assaults falling from 57 to 49 and aggravated assaults declining from 60 to 40.

Sexual orientation motivated 25 percent of all hate crimes, up 13 percent from the previous year. These were also the most serious, with 71 percent being violent, significantly higher than racial or religious crimes.

The Commission has been producing its hate crimes reports since 1980, from data submitted by sheriff and police agencies as well as schools and community organizations.

Of religiously motivated crimes, 77 percent were against Jews and Jewish institutions.

The state describes hate crimes as those in which there is evidence that a substantial factor in committing the crime was bias or prejudice against race, religion, national origin, disability, gender or sexual orientation.

greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-714-2093, twitter.com/gregmellen

Total Reported Hate Crimes by Year in LA County
1991 - 672 1992 - 736 1993 - 783 1994 - 776 1995 - 793 1996 - 995 1997 - 820	1998 - 769 1999 - 859 2000 - 933 2001 - 1,031 2002 - 804 2003 - 691 2004 - 502	2005 - 632 2006 - 596 2007 - 763 2008 - 729 2009 - 593 2010 - 427 2011 - 489

Source: Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_21847432/hate-crimes-rise-los-angeles-report-says

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New Orleans

LGBT community reports police abuses to City Council

by Claire Galofaro

Of the several dozen people packed into City Council chambers Wednesday, many were there to speak for those too afraid to come for themselves: young, black transgendered women, routinely harassed by the city's police officers. They told of several young people being intentionally hit by patrol cars, bloodied, asked if they're prostitutes, arrested for no reason and called names by judges and police officers.

"The accumulation of being harassed on the street, of being afraid to step outside your door, has consequences for the rest of your life," Red Tremmel, the director of Tulane University's Office for Gender and Sexual Diversity, told the City Council's Criminal Justice Committee. "You're already discriminated against in job employment. And then to have the police going after you at the same time means it's virtually impossible to be a citizen."

Committee Chairwoman Susan Guidry invited BreakOUT!, a year-old organization aimed at ending the criminalization of LGBT youth, to Wednesday's committee meeting to present its pitch for reforms of the NOPD.

Wesley Ware, the group's director, described the group's campaign, called "We deserve better," which includes a training video and written policy the group created for the Police Department. "The city of New Orleans should be investing in young people -- and young transgendered people -- not arresting them for walking down the street," he told the council.

Representatives from several organizations -- the Independent Police Monitor, Safe Streets Strong Communities, the Women's Heath and Justice Initiative, and the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana -- spoke at the meeting in support of the group's plan, urging the Police Department to get ahead of the pending federal consent decree that specifically mandates that it overhaul its policy for dealing with the gay community.

NOPD Lt. Otha Sandifer told the committee that the Police Department, which began diversity training in January, has worked with BreakOUT! All officers, new and tenured, must take a 3 1/2-hour diversity training session, paired with a four-hour seminar in impartial policing. The sessions are taught by two officers who are part of the LGBT community.

New Orleans police officers, he said, are mandated to treat all people, regardless of sexual orientation, "professionally and with respect."

And the department has made progress, said Ursula Price, the Independent Police Monitor's director of community relations. But transgendered people are still being targeted by police simply for being transgendered, she said.

"I think that the young people in this room will do a good job at explaining what it feels like to be a marginalized person," Price told the committee. "But I want to remind us what we are losing by marginalizing young people. We are losing their talents. We are losing their engagement. And we're pushing them into a world of criminalization instead of civic engagement and leadership."

"The accumulation of being harassed on the street, being afraid to step outside your door, has consequences for the rest of your life." -Red Tremmel

The committee -- Guidry, with City Council members Stacy Head, Jackie Clarkson and Ernest Charbonnet -- noted their shock for having been unaware of the seething conflict between police and the LGBT community. "I'd like to look at this as an opportunity for our city to move forward," Guidry said. "It certainly seems like the city of New Orleans should be able to move forward on this issue quickly; we do embrace the diversity of our citizenship, in every part of our community."

Those representing the LGBT community said they've been quiet until now, "not for lack of courage," they said, but because of the "power of violence."

Representatives read stories written by those too afraid to tell their own. One 21-year-old wrote of being stopped by an officer who told her she looked too young to be out at night.

The officer told her to put her hands on the hood of his car, then he banged her with the car twice. She ran, her leg bleeding, and hid in the back of a truck, she wrote. A second officer found her there, threw her onto the ground and pressed his knee into her face, then booked her into Orleans Parish Prison, she wrote.

"All of this for walking while black, transgendered, poor and young," she wrote.

The incident has been neither reported to nor investigated by the NOPD's Public Integrity Bureau. BreakOut! reported it to the Independent Police Monitor, which Head pointed out has no power to independently investigate complaints against police.

Price said the victim does not want to be interviewed by the Police Department's Public Integrity Bureau, though the police monitor is weighing whether to report the incident to federal authorities.

It wasn't only those within the LGBT community who came in solidarity with them. Santos Alvarado took to the podium to speak for the city's Congress of Day Laborers, an organization for workers who stand on street corners looking for work.

"We share the same experience of being afraid to walk down the street. And we know what it means to be stopped for the color of your skin, because you look different, because you talk different, because you are different," he said through a translator. That's why we hope that the Police Department applies and starts to practice this new policy -- so that we can all be able to walk down the street feeling safe, as friends."

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/10/lgbt_community_reports_police.html

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Illinois

‘Latin Kings' Call Lincoln Square Home, Police Respond

A interactive crime map shows Chicago's largest gang has territory in Lincoln Square. Do you live within their turf boundaries?

by Carrie Frillman and Andy Ambrosius

(Interactive map on site)

While Lincoln Square is widely considered to be one of Chicago's safest neighborhoods, one of the community's better-known problem areas is now being linked to one of Chicago's deadly gangs.

According to research by the Chicago Police Department, areas from Leavitt to Clark and Foster to Montrose avenues are home to the Latin Kings, one of the city's 59 gangs, according to WBEZ 's interactive map. Another square of gang territory is from California to Rockwell and Argyle to Lawrence avenues.

A recent “gang audit” looked at police statistics and talked with residents and gang experts to discover what gangs are present, where they hang out and who they're currently in conflict with. While the results from the most recent gang audit have yet to be made fully public, WBEZ's map is based on information from 2010.

The Latin Kings is the only gang with territory in Lincoln Square, according to the map. As The History Channel reports, the Latin Kings have been linked to heavy narcotics trafficking in their areas.

They emerged in the 1940s as a way for people who are Hispanic to "protect themselves, their neighborhoods and their families," the report said. The gang has since spread through all of Latin America and into Europe, specifically, Spain.

Community Policing Sgt. Beth Giltmier, with CPD's 19 th District on Addison Street, says the epicenter of the gang problem on the North Side is around the corner of North Broadway and Wilson Avenue in Uptown. However, she says she can't comment on what specifically CPD is doing to combat the problem so as not to give out too much detailed information.

“We can't really show our hand on (what we're doing to fight gangs) because that would defeat the point,” Giltmier said. “But we give it more attention than any other issues. … Any time you have any kind of gang activity, residents living there need to be aware of that.”

Giltmier says the 19 th district partners with police as far north as the 24 th district in Rogers Park to get a handle on gang-related crimes, and they recognize which areas are hotspots. Commander Elias Voulgaris has even ordered more officers to patrol in those locations to try lowering crime rates.

As for residents living near the territory, Giltmier says it's incredibly important that they call 911 if they see any gang-related activates, or if a group simply looks intimidating. Whether someone sees a large gathering of suspicious looking people, an entire group wearing a similar color or people throwing out gang signs, call right away.

And it's not just Lincoln Square that should be aware of gang activity in the North Side. Neighboring communities including Lake View and Roscoe Village have large territories that are home to the Gangster Disciples and Insane Deuces gang, respectively. The Latin Kings and Black P Stone occupy almost all of Uptown.

CPD Chief of Organized Crime Nicholas Roti spoke with WBEZ after releasing the gang maps, and according to their report, releasing them to the public is considered a double-edged sword. While it helps area police and residents identify potential problem areas, he says it could be used for the wrong reasons.

"We don't want to either glorify a gang or maybe unintentionally cause a gang rift," Chief Roti told WBEZ. "You (a gang member) could look at a map and say, 'They got way more territory than us.'”

http://lincolnsquare.patch.com/articles/latin-kings-call-lincoln-square-home-police-respond