The number of reported hate crimes increased by 39 percent in San Diego County

While crime in San Diego County overall declined last year, reported hate crimes in the region rose 39 percent during the same period, according to an analysis of crime data released last week.

In 2023, 133 hate crimes involving 151 victims were reported to local law enforcement, compared to 96 incidents in 2022 and 81 incidents in 2021, the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) said in its annual crime report. This increase mirrors a similar increase in hate crimes reported statewide and reflects a continued upward trend that began in 2021, officials said.

In San Diego County, the most commonly reported hate crimes in 2023 were related to the victim's race, ethnicity or ancestry, accounting for 44 percent of reports. Of these, 52 percent of victims were black, while victims identified as “other” made up 17 percent and Hispanic victims made up about 12 percent of the total. According to SANDAG, nearly a third of reported hate crimes were motivated by sexual orientation, while 24 percent were motivated by religion.

According to the report, the majority of hate crimes involved intimidation, vandalism, simple assault and aggravated assault.

In one case last year, 17 alleged members and supporters of the Hells Angels biker gang were charged in connection with an attack on three black men in Ocean Beach that prosecutors said was racially motivated. One of the men was stabbed in the chest and all three were repeatedly subjected to racist abuse during the attack, prosecutors said.

In another incident, the large menorah in front of the Chabad House at San Diego State University was thrown to the ground and damaged.

In California, hate crimes are defined by law as criminal acts against an individual or group of people because of their perceived race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, or disability.

For a hate crime to be prosecutable under state law, the hate motive must be more than a remote or insignificant factor in the crime. Many hate incidents do not rise to the level of a crime that can be prosecuted, but they are nonetheless disturbing and threatening to the communities affected.

This spring, the Anti-Defamation League reported that San Diego's Jewish community experienced an unprecedented rise in anti-Semitic incidents in 2023, including assault, vandalism and harassment — some of which may not qualify as hate crimes. The group counted 108 reported incidents in San Diego last year, with many of the incidents occurring after the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel and the ongoing war in Gaza.

“These statistics are not just numbers,” said Fabienne Perlov, regional director of ADL San Diego, in a statement released in April. “Behind each and every one of them stands an innocent human being; from a college student who was bullied for wearing a Star of David necklace, to Jewish residents who found anti-Semitic flyers in their driveways, to a rabbi who was attacked in a grocery store. This must stop.”

According to the ADL, there have been bomb threats against synagogues in Carlsbad, Cardiff, Poway and San Diego. Swastikas have been painted on private property, in public areas and on school grounds. Officials in San Diego said there were eight cases of anti-Semitic leaflets being distributed in city neighborhoods in 2023.

In response, Assemblyman Chris Ward authored a bill called the Stop Hate Littering Act, which expands the definition of “intimidation by threat of violence” to include littering. The bill passed both houses and now awaits the governor's signature.

If the law goes into effect, victims could seek civil damages of up to $25,000 against those who distribute hateful materials.

Ward met with several city officials outside the San Carlos Recreation Center on Monday to urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign the bill before the Sept. 30 deadline. Ward said hate dumping has occurred across the state, including in Berkeley, Concord and Walnut Creek in the Bay Area in recent weeks.

“It's time for this to stop,” Ward said at the press conference. “The spread of these messages goes far beyond free speech: It is a deliberate strategy to instill fear and make people feel unsafe in their own communities. They suppress their freedom to express themselves and live authentically as themselves and as our neighbors.”

Ward said people are using hate materials to attack Jewish, LGBTQ+ and other protected communities and that stronger tools are needed to hold perpetrators accountable. Officials said hate littering is difficult to prosecute because it falls into a “legal gray area.”

Mara Elliott, San Diego's city attorney and co-sponsor of the measure, said hate littering poses a risk to certain community members by harassing, intimidating and dehumanizing them. “Free speech is not a way to intimidate or terrorize our communities,” Elliot said. “Distributing hate leaflets with the intent to intimidate and dehumanize people is unacceptable – and will very soon be against the law.”

A Muslim civil rights organization also reported a rise in hate incidents against Muslims and Palestinians nationally and locally, especially since the attack on Israel on Oct. 7. Tazheen Nizam, executive director of CAIR San Diego, said she has heard complaints of bullying and harassment of students on campuses and at universities, as well as in the workplace, especially against those who support the Palestinian people.

“The atmosphere in the community is such that hate incidents and hate crimes are on the rise and communities feel unsupported… We all need to do more to provide safe spaces for our marginalized community, for our communities that feel under attack,” she said.

Nizam said students had complained that school principals were asking them to delete their personal views from their social media accounts. “These are people who are losing family members every day in Palestine,” she said.

As for the bill, Nizam said she would closely monitor its implementation. She said her group was not consulted before the bill was drafted and she wanted to ensure the law did not infringe on protected freedom of expression.

The San Diego County Sheriff's Office said it has focused its resources on community outreach to encourage reporting of hate crimes and has hired dedicated hate crime investigators at all stations and in the jails. “We have made numerous positive changes and built bridges with many groups to ensure they are better served,” sheriff's spokeswoman Kimberly King said in an email. “We also listen to the public and are open to making changes and improvements to our service as needed.”

Other crime trends

SANDAG has tracked the region's crime statistics for decades and regularly publishes reports highlighting crime trends. Officials say this is the first annual report to break crime statistics down into new, broad categories – crimes against persons, crimes against property and crimes against society.

SANDAG's bulletin is based on available data from the California Incident Based Reporting System (CIBRS) and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The system, operated by the FBI, provides a more detailed breakdown of crimes compared to the previously used Uniform Crime Reporting Program's Summary Reporting System, which provided only a snapshot of seven major crimes. Both the FBI and law enforcement began moving away from that system in 2021.

The new system provides statistics divided into three categories. Crimes against persons include murder and sexual assault; crimes against property include robbery, theft and vandalism; and crimes against society include drug offenses, prostitution and animal cruelty. According to the report, all three crime categories declined in the San Diego region last year.

Due to the new reporting system, SANDAG provided comparisons for the last two years rather than providing a longer look back at historical data.

The number of crimes against persons fell by two percent to 32,964 in 2023. The number of murders fell by 21 percent and the number of simple assaults by six percent. The number of serious assaults increased by seven percent.

Property crimes fell 8 percent last year. However, shoplifting rose 25 percent, with law enforcement reporting 5,234 cases, up from 4,174 cases in 2022.

The number of crimes against society as a whole fell by 3 percent in 2023 compared to the previous year, although reports of prostitution increased by 20 percent.

In total, 133,717 serious crimes were reported in the region's 18 cities and unincorporated areas in 2023, 5 percent fewer than in 2022 and 9 percent fewer than in 2021. According to the report, property crimes accounted for more than half of the reported incidents.