Black, Jewish and LGBTQ2 communities ‘frequently victimized’ as hate/bias cases up in Hamilton

A Hamilton police study has revealed Black, Jewish and LGBTQ2 communities are the “most frequently victimized” when it comes to hate/bias calls in the city, year over year.

The annual Hate/Bias Statistical Report, to be presented at a board meeting on Thursday, revealed 174 occurrences were connected with Hamilton Police Service (HPS) calls for service in 2022, 26 categorized as crimes and 148 with hate/bias overtones.

“The majority of reported occurrences were directly related to racial bias, followed by religion and sexual orientation,” the analysis submitted by hate crime detective Fabiano Mendes said.

In all, it marks a 64 per cent increase in hate incidents year over year.

About 53.8 per cent of those considered crimes were “cleared” by police through either an arrest, diversion, a victim declining to proceed with charges or another circumstance.

However, Mendes did caution that the hate crimes and incidents in the report are only ones the service knows about and that changes in numbers may reflect a rise in reporting due to “community outreach efforts or heightened awareness.”

“The majority of all reported hate-related occurrences were random in nature, with no definable pattern, and were believed to have been committed by individuals and not by organized groups,” the report added.

Mendes suggests one of the reasons hate crimes go unreported is due to victims not feeling the crime was important or the chances of policing apprehending the suspects being low.

“Sometimes the victims may see the incident as a personal matter, since they may involve family or a colleague,” Mendes told 900 CHML’s Good Morning Hamilton.

“There might be a feeling of blame or embarrassment about being targeted (or) the victim may not understand that they have been victimized or they try to solve the issue themselves.”

Broken down by ethnicity, the Black community was the most targeted, accounting for 65 occurrences, up by 30 year over year.

Of those occurrences, 40 per cent were “graffiti-related,” according to the HPS.

Meanwhile, the Jewish community received the bulk of the hate incidents targeting religion with 42, up from the 24 reported in 2020.

Over 90 per cent of those involved graffiti.

There were five reported cases by members of the Muslim community in 2022, a marked decrease from the 14 police were made aware of in 2021.

Reported hate/bias occurrences by sexual orientation and gender were more prevalent among those who identify as gay, targeted in 22 occurrences.

Year over year, cases involving the gay community remained relatively flat; there were 19 in 2021.

Reports from the transgender community went up by eight in 2022, compared with the two known by police in 2021.

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The annual overview reiterated several initiatives the service has and will implement in the hopes of working collaboratively to improve outcomes for hate crime victims.

At the top of the list is engagement using the HPS community relations and hate crime case review teams, which includes focus groups to identify concerns, needs and expectations.

“In that particular case, we’ve already had many of our community that are willing to sit down and start looking at that, as Hamilton as a whole, managing hate in our community,” HPS Chief Frank Bergen told Global News in an interview Friday.

Mendes told 900 CHML’s Good Morning Hamilton the proactive initiatives include joining the Hate Crime Unit with a community engagement unit, enhanced victim supports and updated training for new recruits.

“We have expanded our online reporting to include hate crimes, and we are currently working to establish a hate crime case review team in response to hate motivated crimes in Hamilton,” Mendes explained.

HPS also has a new hate crime dashboard Mendes says provides “real time data” tied to hate crimes and occurrences enabling focus on prevention efforts.

A “Hold Hate Crime” symposium is set for May 17 in downtown Hamilton, open to both police and community members to discuss issues and support victims.

Police recently appointed a third-party facilitator to lead conversations with the LGBTQ2 community and a liaison officer to engage Indigenous circles.

Rebecca Banky, the current chair of the city’s LGBTQ2 advisory committee, admitted to Global News she is an example of a individual who once chose not to engage investigators following a hate incident.

“I chose to report it only in a very limited way because the trust didn’t feel like it was there for me,” Banky revealed.

She will run a number of small focus groups with community members and Hamilton police over the summer in the hopes of making “small steps” to improve experiences in reporting incidents.