Bias crimes up nationally but down locally – Yahoo News
Sep. 4—While hate crimes rose across the country and Minnesota last year, they were down in south-central Minnesota.
The FBI’s annual hate crime report released this week included nearly 7,800 criminal incidents known to have been motivated at least in part by bias in 2020. That’s the highest national number since 2018 and a 6% increase over 2019.
Minnesota’s data showed a similar trend, with 194 hate crimes reported to the federal government by law enforcement agencies — up from 140 in 2019 and 126 in 2018.
But reports were down across The Free Press’ coverage area, which includes the counties of Blue Earth, Nicollet, Le Sueur, Waseca, Brown, Sibley, Watonwan and Faribault. Last year 11 bias crimes were reported in the area compared to 17 in 2019.
The Mankato Department of Public Safety reported seven incidents, three of which were vandalism, four of which were classified as “intimidation” and one was a robbery.
Three of the victims reportedly were targeted because they are Black. The other victims were white, Jewish, gay or had a cognitive disability.
While the number of incidents were down last year, Deputy Director of Mankato Public Safety Matt DuRose said he’s not satisfied.
“Our community can do much better than the seven that were reported,” he said. “I would like to see our number as zero, and I think we could get there in the future.”
DuRose said his department has reviewed the bias crimes that occurred last year and the seven reported so far this year and did not find any trends.
“We have incidents that have included bias based upon race, religion and sexual orientation,” DuRose said. “Some have involved strangers, some have involved known acquaintances. They have involved neighbor disputes, disturbance related, graffiti and harassment incidents.”
Three other area agencies also reported bias crimes.
The Janesville Police Department had two: an anti-Jewish incident of vandalism and intimidation over the Internet of a gay person.
The Sleepy Eye Police Department reported an assault against a Black person and the Brown County Sheriff’s Office reported a crime, classified as “other,” against a Hispanic person.
Of the five regional incidents in which the suspect’s race was known, four suspects were white and one was Black.
The annual FBI reports have long drawn concern they significantly underreport hate crimes. Law enforcement agencies are not required to participate and nearly 3,500 departments did not do so last year.
“The fact that so many law enforcement agencies did not participate is inexcusable, and the fact that over 60 jurisdictions with populations over 100,000 affirmatively reported zero hate crimes is simply not credible,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement.
For the federal report, law enforcement agencies are asked to report criminal acts only if investigation “reveals sufficient objective facts to lead a reasonable and prudent person to conclude that the offender’s actions were motivated, in whole or in part, by his or her bias.”
That can be a high threshold, said North Mankato Police Chief Ross Gullickson. His city has reported only one hate crime to the FBI in more than 20 years. There have been other crimes potentially motivated by bias but not conclusively.
“At times the ‘sufficient objective facts’ can be easily determined,” Gullickson said. “At other times an offender’s motivation is not known.”
In Minnesota, law enforcement agencies are required to report potentially bias-motivated crimes to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The state-reporting criteria are a bit different than the federal request, however. Minnesota agencies are required to report any time an officer “has reason to believe” there was bias and any time a victim alleges bias.
So some incidents are reported to the state but not the FBI, Gullickson said. For example the egging of a vehicle last month will be reported to the state because the vehicle’s owner believes it was racially motivated. Whether the same incident is also reported to the FBI remains to be determined pending the outcome of the investigation.
The state’s 2020 report of bias crimes lists 223 incidents — 29 more than in the federal report. None of the additional reported incidents were in south-central Minnesota.
There were more bias crimes reported in Mankato than in St. Cloud or Rochester. Both cities reported three to the FBI and St. Cloud reported four to the state.
But DuRose doesn’t compare Mankato to other communities. What constitutes a bias crime is still somewhat subjective, he said. Mankato officers receive training on when to report bias. But that training may not be happening in every department.
Citizens also might be more willing to report bias in some communities than in others, the deputy director said.
“I think that there are enough variables involved to prevent us from comparing ourselves to any other community,” he said.