FBI Report Shows Hate Crime, Anti-Muslim Attacks Increased In 2015

An FBI report released Monday showed a rise in hate crimes in 2015 driven at least in part by increased anti-Muslim attacks. The survey and accompanying report break down the incidents by race, gender, and religious motivation both among the victims and the perpetrators. The report showed 5,818 hate crimes last year, an increase of around 6 percent since 2014. The crimes recorded included bombings, threats, property destruction, assaults, and other attacks against minorities, gay or transgender people, women, and others. "Attacks against Muslim Americans saw the biggest surge," the New York Times wrote in its analysis. "There were 257 reports of assaults, attacks on mosques and other hate crimes against Muslims last year, a jump of about 67 percent over 2014. It was the highest total since 2001, when more than 480 attacks occurred in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks." Those numbers paint a story of the initial effects of a campaign defined on one side by frequent verbal attacks against Mexicans, Muslims, and anyone else Trump deemed a threat to his America. “We need to do a better job of tracking and reporting hate crime to fully understand what is happening in our communities and how to stop it,” FBI Director James Comey wrote in a release Monday. Attacks appear to have spiked in the week since Trump's election. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a longstanding civil rights organization, has recorded 437 incidents of hate-motivated violence from November 9 to November 14. Their report includes 136 anti-immigrant incidents, the most of any category, and 41 incidents of pro-Trump intimidation or harassment. That's compared to 20 instances of anti-Trump incidents.

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