Hate Crimes Up Across Florida; Eight Reported In Escambia County

January 3, 2014

Florida saw a 22.3 percent increase in reported hate crimes in 2012 from the prior year, according to a report released  by Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office. Of the 170 hate crimes reported in Florida in 2012, eight were in Escambia County.

Four of Escambia County’s hate crimes were reported by the Pensacola Police Department, three by the University of West Florida Police Department and one by the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office.

Pensacola Police reported three aggravated assaults related to face and one related to sexual orientation. Two UWF incidents were vandalisms related to race and one intimidation complaint related to sexual orientation. The single complaint to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office was a simple assault related to race.

Statewide Data

Racially-motivated crimes comprised the majority of the 170 hate crimes reported in 2012 by local law enforcement agencies providing data to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The 170 reported hate crimes were the most in a single year since 2008, when there were 182. Crimes motivated by race and skin color represented 54.1 percent of the reported cases.

Other factors were: sexual orientation, which accounted for 28.8 percent; religion, 10 percent; ethnicity and national origin, 6.5 percent; and mental disability, 0.6 percent. The data does not include hate crimes committed against the homeless, which is not part of the Uniform Crime Reporting system used to compile the report. Hate crimes were reported in 30 Florida counties in 2012, down from 31 the previous year. Orange County accounted for 32 reported hate crimes in 2012, the most for any county, and up from 26 a year earlier. Brevard County had the second most with 15, up from six the prior year.

While the report lists the reason each crime was listed as a hate crime, it does not speculate on what caused the overall increase in hate crimes from year to year.

Comments

2 Responses to “Hate Crimes Up Across Florida; Eight Reported In Escambia County”

  1. William on January 3rd, 2014 11:17 am

    >>How many were white on black, black on white, hispanic on black, etc.

    If you’ll read the report to which you linked, you’d find that information is not included.

  2. Lars on January 3rd, 2014 8:18 am

    I notice with interest a lack of information regarding the details of these racially motivated acts. How many were white on black, black on white, hispanic on black, etc.

    Here is the link to the full report:

    http://myfloridalegal.com/webfiles.nsf/WF/KGRG-9EWMZA/$file/2012HateCrimesReport.pdf

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News