FBI: Hate crimes down nationally; nearly half are racial

By Jay Scott Smith, theGrio

The FBI released its yearly report on hate crimes last week and it showed a slight decrease in 2011….In 2011, law enforcement agencies reported 7,713 victims of hate crimes nationally and all but 16 of the total incidents were based on one bias. Overall, 46.9 percent of hate crimes were racially motivated, 20.8 percent from sexual orientation, and 19.8 percent were motivated by religious bias.

Out of those who committed hate crimes nationwide, nearly 60 percent were white while 20 percent were black.

Justin Alesna, a 23-year-old Detroit man, was the victim of a black-on-black hate crime in March 2011, when he was assaulted in a Detroit gas station by a man who claimed that he was standing too close to him in line and peppered him with gay slurs before assaulting him….Alesna also said that as the assault happened, bystanders encouraged the beating and laughed while the clerk working in the store refused to call police.

Police eventually arrested 36-year-old Everett Dwayne Avery, who plead guilty to the assault this past August and faces 12 years in federal prison. Avery was the second person convicted under the Hate Crimes Prevention Act that President Obama signed into law in 2009.

“A hate crime is different than a simple assault because it is an attack on not just one individual victim, but an attack on everyone who shares a particular characteristic,” U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said after the guilty plea. “By passing this statute, Congress made it clear that an attack based on a victim’s sexual orientation will not be tolerated in America.”

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Learn about the long history of racism that motivates some hate crimes.

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