12 AMERICAN BLUES THEATER The number of hate crimes in [Washington D.C.] rose sharply in 2018, nearly doubling the total [number of hate crimes] just two years earlier, according to city statistics. Crimes based on sexual orientation topped the list, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, a research center at California State University at San Bernardino. The center analyzed the rise in hate crimes in cities across the nation in its annual report on bias crimes. “D.C. is at an all-time high,” said Brian Levin, the professor who led the research study. The District logged 209 hate crimes in 2018, up from 179 in 2017, 107 in 2016, and 66 in 2015. Of the 20 largest cities Levin analyzed, all but four saw an uptick in hate crimes from 2017 to 2018, and the District’s two-year rise was among the most significant. City leaders responded to the data with concern. Mónica Palacio, who heads the District’s Office of Human Rights, said the surge in hate crimes is a difficult problem for the city to solve, with national politics driving the rise in hate and, she suspects, some of the actors coming from outside of the city. “In the District, we’re somewhat of a national target, right? If somebody spray-paints a symbol of hate or hangs a symbol of hate in the District, the echo effect is much larger,” she said. “I think the mayor puts out a very strong statement about our values as a city: inclusion, respect, peaceful coexistence, respect for people’s life choices, for who they love and how they pray. Those values are a powerful statement that we as a District stand for these beliefs.” Hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity accounted for nearly half of the city’s total hate crimes in 2018. The District recorded 61 crimes in 2018 based on sexual orientation, up from 40 in 2016 and 56 in 2017 (an increase of more than 50% over two years). That was followed by 49 crimes based on ethnicity, up from 13 in 2016 and 40 in 2017 (an increase of more than 300% in two years) and 39 based on race, up from 13 in 2016 and 47 in 2017 (also a 300% increase in two years). The District also logged 36 crimes based on gender identity, up from 19 in 2016 and 13 in 2017 (more than 50% higher in 2018 than two years ago); and 12 based on religion, a 33% decrease from 2016’s 18 crimes and the same as 2017. Stephania Mahdi, the co-chair of the DC Anti-Violence Project, which focuses on violence against the LGBTQ community, said the rise in crimes based on sexuality and gender identity has been apparent to her. Her organization offers free mental health counseling to victims of violence; so many victims have sought that support recently that the group has hired a second social worker. “The political climate doesn’t help. We are backtracking as a country, when it comes to how we respect and view and talk about and talk with the LGBTQ community,” she said. “You see a rise in anti-LGBTQ policies on the national level. That all adds into this climate where we’re seeing people feeling more vulnerable than they may have ever felt before.” D.C. police also reported 10 crimes based on political affiliation in 2017 and 11 crimes in 2018, after tallying just zero, one or two crimes per year from 2011 through 2016. Levin noted that the District is one of the few cities in the country that counts political affiliation as a basis for hate crimes, alongside more common categories like anti-black, anti-Latino, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim and anti-gay crimes. “We’re entrenched in [political] polarization now, more so than we’ve been in decades. Conflicts are not just being divided along racial and ethnic lines, but we’re also seeing these political conflicts taking place that end up in violence,” Levin said. “It’s creating a new hate crime, based on politics.” A D.C. police lieutenant said he believes the higher number of hate crimes overall is attributable, in part, to residents’ increased awareness...that they can report such incidents to police. In addition, he said, every D.C. police officer was trained on bias crimes in 2015, and may have since become better at properly reporting incidents. “The science of reporting is tricky. The more aggressively you try to prevent an activity, sometimes the more people report on it,” the D.C. Office of Human Rights’ Palacio said. But both Palacio and the police lieutenant, as well as outside experts who study hate crimes, said they believe it is not just an increase in reporting — a larger volume of hate crimes simply seem to be occurring. Many of the cities in the study use different criteria to report their data. Some, like Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, Portland, Ore., and Louisville, break down racially THE RISING NUMBER OF HATE CRIMES SINCE 2016 The below article by Julie Zauzmer and Terrence McCoy—entitled “D.C. Hate Crimes Nearly Double Since 2016, with LGBTQ Community the Biggest Target”—originally appeared in The Washington Post on February 2, 2019. It has been edited here for length.