USA - Report: Hate crimes increase 28 percent in Los Angeles County, highest mark in 5 years

Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations

Hate crimes in Los Angeles County soared last year to their highest mark in five years even as overall crime dropped across the region, according to a report released at July 24, 2008.

The annual report by the county's human relations commission shows 763 hate crimes were reported in 2007, a 28 percent increase from 2006.

The most common hate crimes were those motivated by race.

A majority of the hate crimes involved vandalism and simple assault, but aggravated assault was involved in 187 of them, a nearly 90 percent increase over the year before.

The report said that 105 hate crimes were based on religion - a 17 percent increase -and nearly three-quarters of them were anti-Jewish.

Source: http://humanrelations.co.la.ca.us/

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