Hate crimes rose in 2024, says California annual report

California last year saw reported anti-LGBTQ+ bias events rise 13.9% over 2023 numbers. While the increase was significantly less than the dramatic spike in such incidents that was reported last year, state prosecutors cautioned a lack of data likely accounts for such a steep year-to-year drop off. 

The state recorded an eye-popping 86.4% increase of anti-LGBTQ+ bias events from 2022 to 2023, as the Bay Area Reporter reported around this time last year, when the 2023 hate crimes report was released. On June 25, in the middle of this year’s Pride Week, California Attorney General Rob Bonta released the “Hate Crime in California 2024” report.

It reported that hate crime events in general rose 2.7%, from 1,970 in 2023 to 2,023 in 2024. The report does caution “comparing 2024 crime data to prior years,” because “not all agencies were able to submit a full year of data for 2024.”

The report goes on to state that agencies in seven counties – including Los Angeles and San Diego counties, but none of which were in the Bay Area – did not report full data, “due to a variety of reasons including but not limited to issues with their Record Management Systems (RMS), unresolved reporting errors, staffing issues, being newly established reporting agencies, or failing to submit data.”

The report defines a hate crime event as one that “contains the occurrence of one or more criminal offenses, committed against one or more victims, by one or more suspects or perpetrators. Victims can have more than one offense committed against them.”

In San Francisco, the city reported 52 hate crime events impacting 57 victims and involving 51 suspects. The regional BART system and SF State both reported one event for San Francisco County each involving one victim and two suspects for the transit incident and three for the campus hate crime.

“There is absolutely no place for hate in California,” Bonta stated. “Transparent and accessible data is a critical part of understanding where we are and how we can end hate crimes in our communities.”

The attorney general urged fellow Californians to look at the report and the data so as to try to protect the state’s diverse communities, saying that “everyone has a part to play as we continue to fight intolerance in California, and I urge leaders up and down the state to review the data and resources available and recommit to standing united against hate. The California Department of Justice remains steadfast in our commitment to continue working with law enforcement, elected leaders, and community organizations across California to keep our communities safe.” 

The groups most likely to be targeted in reported hate crime events were Black Americans, Jews, and gay men, in that order, according to the report. Reported hate crime events involving a sexual orientation bias increased 12.3% from 405 in 2023 to 455 in 2024. Of those, 231 in 2023 and 251 in 2024 were against gay males specifically. 

Anti-lesbian reported hate crime events rose from 17 in 2023 to 23 in 2024. Anti-bisexual reported hate crime events rose from 6 in 2023 to 7 in 2024. There were no anti-heterosexual reported hate crime events reported in 2023, but two reported in 2024.

Jorge Reyes Salinas, a gay man who is communications director for the statewide LGBTQ affinity group Equality California, stated to the B.A.R. that, “This report confirms what so many of us already know: hate is rising in California—and our communities are paying the price. This isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s the direct result of dangerous political rhetoric, extremist violence, and policies designed to scapegoat people for who they are. We need stronger protections, better enforcement, and elected officials at every level of government to call out hate in all its forms—regardless of their politics.”

Reported hate crime events involving a gender bias increased 2.4% from 82 in 2023 to 84 in 2024. Specifically, anti-trans bias events increased 12.3% from 65 in 2023 to 73 in 2024, while anti-gender-nonconforming bias events fell, from 11 in 2023 to 7 in 2024.

Reported hate crime events based on anti-Black, Asian, white, Muslim and Roman Catholic identities also fell. However, reported hate crimes against Jewish Californians rose 7.3% from 289 in 2023 to 310 in 2024. 

San Francisco leaders address safety concerns

San Francisco city leaders held a news conference last week about anti-semitism after vandalism at a gay, Jewish-owned cafe in the Mission district, and after hate crimes were charged against two people after an antisemitic assault in the Marina neighborhood, according to the San Francisco District Attorney’s office. On June 24, the day before the report was released, the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution condemning antisemitism and all forms of race- and religion-based violence.

It was introduced by gay Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, who is Jewish and represents District 8 and its LGBTQ Castro neighborhood.

“This resolution is a clear statement that San Francisco stands with its Jewish residents and against antisemitism in all its forms,” stated Mandelman. “These acts of hate – whether they are violent, verbal, or symbolic – are part of a broader pattern of rising bias-based violence that we must confront with unity and moral clarity.”

Jonathan Mintzer, senior director of government affairs at the Jewish Community Relations Council, thanked the supervisors, stating, “JCRC Bay Area applauds this unequivocal stand rejecting antisemitism and seeking to address it in government spaces. Let this be a call to stand together across divides. Every San Franciscan deserves safety, and every Jew deserves the opportunity to live their authentic Jewish lives without threat of violence.”

Gay District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey introduced legislation this week to create a hate crime reward fund, which would offer informants $100,000 upon conviction. He cited the Mission and Marina incidents while doing so, as well as an incident in Redwood City when teens allegedly threw fireworks into a crowd at an LGBTQ Pride celebration, which the B.A.R. reported on at the time.

“Hate crime perpetrators never aim to victimize an individual or business solely, but to instill fear in entire communities,” Dorsey stated. “A generously funded Hate Crime Reward will help flip the script on bigots — by instilling fear into hate criminals that informants will be well paid to bring them to justice for their hateful vandalism and violence. In times like these especially, a city as diverse as San Francisco must take hate crimes extremely seriously. The Hate Crime Reward Fund I’m proposing is about sending a strong message to would-be hate criminals that San Francisco is doing exactly that.” 

Asked about Bonta’s report, Dorsey stated to the B.A.R. that the numbers are “troubling, but I’m honestly more worried about this year.”

“In the first Trump administration, we saw how COVID-related anti-Asian rhetoric drove hate incidents and hate crimes targeting our AAPI communities,” Dorsey stated. “In the second Trump administration, the favored targets so far seem to be our immigrant and trans communities. We’ve also seen how global events like the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel drove incidents targeting Jewish and Muslim communities alike.” 

Dorsey added he hopes the reward fund, if approved, will “send a message to would-be hate criminals that we take bigotry-motivated vandalism and violence seriously, and that we’ll pay handsomely to bring perpetrators of these crimes to justice.”

At a June 26 news conference to discuss security for upcoming LGBTQ Pride festivities in the city, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said that she was sent the hate crimes report that very morning.

“I am concerned that gay men fall on the top of that list, along with Black Americans and Jewish Americans,” Jenkins said. “It shows the work we still have ahead of us to show, as San Franciscans, we embrace each other more positively.”

Jenkins continued that her hate crimes designated prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Jamal Anderson, continues to work with Mandelman at having events in the Castro neighborhood to encourage people to report hate crimes and any incidents that they believe may be unlawful. The most recent of these forums, the B.A.R. covered in September 2024. 

Jenkins’ office did not charge a hate crime earlier this week after the pink triangle, an LGBTQ symbol placed on Twin Peaks for Pride month, was vandalized. A police interview revealed the suspect did not know what the symbol represented, she said, and so her office did not feel they could get a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, as the B.A.R. reported.   

“I do continue to encourage people to report to the police,” she said.

Deputy Police Chief Derrick Lew added that after the recent antisemitic incidents, the department is in touch with places of worship, and communicates with the broader national intelligence community about both national and international events on a regular basis.

Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) cited 2023 federal statistics showing that Jews, LGBTQs and Muslims face the highest number of hate crimes per capita. For Jews there were 291 reported hate crimes per 1 million Jewish Americans in 2023; for LGBTQs it was 111 reported hate crimes per 1 million LGBTQ Americans the same year; for Muslim Americans it was 79 reported hate crimes per 1 million Muslim Americans. (2023 is the most recent year for which federal statistics are available.)

“This report, consistent with FBI national hate crime data, shows that some of our smallest communities — including Jews, LGBTQ people, and Black people — are the most severely targeted by hate crimes,” Wiener, the subject of death threats due to both being Jewish and gay, stated June 27. “The atmosphere of hate and bigotry in this country is escalating. We need to put a stop to it and have a zero tolerance policy for hate crimes of any kind.”

The State of California offers help for victims or witnesses to a hate crime or hate incident. This resource is supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the State Library in partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs as part of the Stop the Hate program. To report a hate incident or hate crime and get support, go to CA vs Hate .