Top local and federal law enforcement officials came to the Castro recently for a town hall on hate crimes. Key for attendees was learning what such incidents are and how to report them.
The 80-minute event September 12 featured San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins; Police Chief William Scott; FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Tripp; and Martha Boersch, chief of the criminal division at the United States Attorney's office for the Northern District of California, among others. It was facilitated by the San Francisco Police Department's LGBTQ+ Advisory Forum and was held at Ellard Hall at Most Holy Redeemer Roman Catholic Church.
The forum was a follow-up to an event featuring Tripp at the Academy last year, which the Bay Area Reporter covered.
Scott said it was important for the heads of the various agencies to be in attendance since they are all trying to accomplish the same thing — combat hate incidents — even though they have different roles to play.
"We have to be united with our partners — FBI, the DA's office, and the other law enforcement agencies not only in the City and County of San Francisco but in the region," he said. "As much as we like to think this is a thing of the past, we know the reality is it is not. Hate is something that has been with us in society, American society, forever and it's not going away, so we have to be unified in our response."
Lieutenant Bassey Obot, who runs the San Francisco Police Department's special investigations division, which oversees hate crime investigations, said that hate speech is constitutionally protected. The department keeps track of "hate incidents" that don't rise to the level of a crime, Obot said, which can make it easier to establish a pattern of behavior when incidents do rise to the level of a crime.
A hate crimes charge enhances charges that are already in themselves crimes — such as assault or murder — when it can be shown bias was a motivating factor.
Obot said that the SFPD's community engagement division can help survivors of hate crimes and hate incidents.
"Hate crimes versus hate incidents are two different things," Obot said. "We're not going to slam the door and say 'that's not a crime, can't help you, sorry.' We're going to say 'here's the community engagement division, they can help you, they can connect you with resources, community resources, non-governmental agencies, churches, community groups, to help you get through that."
Scott said that his main point is whether people think it's a crime or not, they should "report, report, report, because it's underreported." Law enforcement and prosecutors, he noted, will sort out themselves how the facts apply to the law.
San Francisco has not seen the precipitous rise of all reported hate crimes since 2020 that has afflicted other parts of the state and nation, according to
Scott said that in 2023, "we saw an increase, and it's really across the spectrum in terms of the increase in hate crimes."
The FBI's annual report on crime statistics, including hate crimes, came out September 23, covering 2023. It found that nationwide, hate crimes on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity rose by 23% and 16% respectively from 2022, though overall crime that the FBI tracks is down. Sexual orientation is the third most common motivation for hate crimes, the FBI found, after race and religion (it had been in second place but was overtaken by religion this past year).
One in five hate crimes were based on LGBTQ bias.
"Even as public acceptance of LGBTQ+ people continues to grow, and overall crime continues to decline, hate crimes against us are not yet showing signs of subsiding," Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson stated. "Make no mistake, politicians who spread disinformation and demonize our lives are contributing to this violence. This trend needs to end. ... All law enforcement agencies must commit to fully reporting data on hate crimes in their communities. And politicians and community leaders across the country need to stop lying about our community and inciting hatred against us. We must turn the tide so that LGBTQ+ people can feel safe everywhere."
The Black, Asian, trans, Jewish, and Islamic communities have become targets of vitriol in recent years. At the forum, Jenkins said she was the DA's office's designated hate crimes prosecutor for two years, at the time Donald Trump became president.
"I took over that job, or that responsibility, not long after our previous president took office, and our case load exploded from four cases to 32," she said. "We had a pretty significant number of hate crimes against the LGBTQ community, including ... I had a number of cases against trans victims. It is something that is real in our city, and we have to acknowledge that and that yes, we are progressive and liberal San Francisco, but we are not perfect, and we still have a long way to go."
Jenkins agreed people should report "whatever it is that happened," whether it turns out to be a crime or not.
"We have the burden of going in and proving not only the underlying crime — if somebody threatened you, assaulted you — but we also, then, if we add a hate crime allegation have to prove that the motivating factor for the criminal conduct was hate," she said.
"The only way to even charge a hate crime is to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt the motivation for the crime itself was bias, animus, or hate. What that can be founded in is if somebody in the course of attacking you says hateful things; but sometimes they don't say anything at all," added Jenkins. "But what we do is look back at, at previous incidents involving this person so, if we have a track record of behavior of them engaging in hate incidents that has been documented, we can use that."
Sometimes a person will be charged with a hate crime only to be acquitted at trial. That's what happened in the case of Muhammed Abdullah, 21, following a June 2023 incident in the Castro neighborhood. Abdullah was charged with assault and hate crime charges after he was accused of hitting a man and stealing a Pride flag. But in May a jury acquitted him of all charges.
More recently gay District 9 supervisor candidate Trevor Chandler was allegedly attacked while campaigning by a man who yelled homophobic slurs at him. Jeffrey Landon, 58, was arrested and charged with a hate crime and assault charges. But in August, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Carolyn Gold dismissed the hate crime charge.
State laws
California has robust hate crimes statutes; three states have none, and only 20 states cover sexual orientation in their laws. Where state laws don't provide protection, that responsibility falls to the federal government.
Boersch with the U.S. Attorney's Office discussed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, which expanded the federal definition for hate crimes to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
"It's a very important federal statute and that's one of the things that's in our arsenal on the federal side that we can use when there has been a hate crime against somebody because of their gender identity or their sexual orientation," she said. "It is really, really important for people to report when they believe they have been a victim of such a crime or if they think someone else has been a victim of such a crime."
The FBI's Tripp said that the feds are "not usually the first responders for a hate crime," and often get cases forwarded to them by local authorities.
"That doesn't mean it's not a priority for us," he said. "When we assess our priorities, we look at impact, and I defy to name a crime that has more impact than hate crimes. There are crimes of violent brutality, there are crimes that rob victims of their sense of safety, and it's not just the single victim in the crosshairs there. A hate crime is an act of intimidation and it really does seek to rob a whole community of that sense of safety."
Asked if the town hall was helpful, nonbinary, transmasculine attendee Rowan Ducharme said, "absolutely."
"I learned a lot about where the border of hate speech and hate crime is," Ducharme said. "I thought that was super helpful. When a lot of us in the LGBTQ community hear the f-word, we feel hurt, but we got a little lesson from the police — you can't pull out your taser when someone says something you don't like, though they didn't say that so directly. ... it's when they touch you that it's a problem."
The State of California offers help for victims or witnesses to a hate crime or hate incident. This resource is supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library in partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs as part of the Stop the Hate program. To report a hate incident or hate crime and get support, go to CA vs Hate.
Updated, 9/24/24: This article has been updated with information from the FBI's annual hate crimes report.
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