By Steve Neavling
A record 51 hate crime murders were reported in 2019, a more than two-fold increase over last year’s all-time high, according to FBI data released Monday.
All forms of hate crimes also rose to 7,314, a 3% increase over last year, the FBI said in a news release. In all, there were 8,552 victims.
“When one individual is targeted by a hate crime, it hurts the whole community — that’s why people are feeling vulnerable and afraid,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement on the statistics’ release.
Included in the hate crime murders were the 22 people killed in an August 2019 shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, where the shooter said he was “targeting Mexicans.”
Hate crimes are defined as those with “bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity.”
More than 57% of the hate crimes were motivated by race/ethnicity/ancestry bias. Nearly 20% were motivated by religious bias, followed by 16.8% motivated by sexual-orientation bias, and 2.7% by gender identity bias.
Of the known offenders, 52.5% were white and 23.9% were Black. Another 10% were Hispanic.
