ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Reports collected from state police show Maryland saw a sharp uptick in reports of hate or bias in 2017.
The Baltimore Sun reports that Maryland State Police and records obtained through a public information request indicate the state’s law enforcement agencies received 398 such reports last year, an increase of 35 percent from 2016. The newspaper built a database from the nearly 700 incident reports state police collected from local departments in the last two years.
The trend mirrors a national increase in reported hate crimes - a reversal of a long decline - and coincides with the 2016 presidential election campaign and widening divisions in the nation.
“There is no escaping that the tone and tenor of the 2016 national election helped to usher us into where we’re at now,” said Alvin Gillard, executive director of the Maryland Commission on Civil Rights. “History has taught us: When that language becomes accepted parlance, it often moves from language to action.”
In 2017, state or local police “verified” 46 percent of complaints, but 52 percent were classified as “inconclusive,” meaning police couldn’t determine if they were based on hate, often because authorities couldn’t identify suspects. Statewide, only 2 percent were ruled unfounded.
The most common incident was vandalism. Around 60 were assaults.
The cases include the fatal attack on Army 2nd Lt. Richard Collins III, a black college student from Calvert County, in May 2017 on the University of Maryland campus. He was days away from graduating from Bowie State University.
Sean Urbanski, a white University of Maryland student from Anne Arundel County, was charged with first-degree murder. Police said Urbanski was a member of the now-deleted Facebook group “Alt-Reich Nation” and prosecutors have since added a charge of hate crime resulting in death.
A hate crime charge can add up to three years and a $5,000 fine to a misdemeanor crime, and up to 20 years and $20,000 to a felony such as murder.
Those who work with the data warn that it’s not clear if the increase shows a rise in the number of incidents, victims’ increased willingness to report or both.
Gillard said “chronic” underreporting persists and his commission, which reviews the incidents, has repeatedly questioned the lack of reports from some jurisdictions. Eighty percent of the state’s 161 law enforcement agencies reported no hate incidents in the last two years. Kent and Caroline counties haven’t reported any hate or bias incidents over the last six years.
“It’s been a challenge to make the reporting a priority,” Gillard said. “For many, it’s not.”
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Information from: The Baltimore Sun, http://www.baltimoresun.com
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