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“What, are you gay cruising a straight neighborhood?”
That’s what the victim heard, according to a police report, before he was attacked just steps away from the intersection of Halsted Street and Belmont Avenue–the hub of Boystown. The assailant punched him several times–three times to the face–and knocked him to the ground, hitting him again before he fled to the street.
“You’re not going to look so pretty tomorrow,” the assailant said as the victim ran off, according to the report.
That attack in the 700 block of West Briar Place one Sunday last March resulted in no arrest and was just one of the several hate crimes logged in Chicago throughout 2011. Reports of such incidents increased slightly last year as city officials, lawmakers and community organizations continued work locally and nationwide to combat these crimes.
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The issue has been thrust back into the spotlight recently. In January, three white teenagers were charged with hate crimes after they allegedly put a noose around a black teen and threatened him in Beverly. Meanwhile, the “It Gets Better” project to prevent gay bullying gained momentum in its second year, and Arkansas saw the nation’s first conviction under the recently passed Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
In Chicago, 51 incidents–five more than in 2010–were reported to police last year as having a possible hate motivation, according to information provided by the Chicago Commission on Human Relations, which assists hate crime victims.
Chicago police investigated those incidents and determined that 10 were “bona fide,” meaning a criminal act was committed and the motive is believed to be based on an actual or perceived specific characteristic of the victim such as race or sexual orientation.
The police classified the remaining incidents as either “unfounded” in which the hate motive was ruled out, or “undetermined” because of insufficient evidence to verify the incident was a hate crime.
Chicago police found no trends explaining the bump in reported incidents but noted community organizations can play a role in increasing awareness and reporting.”
Although the number of hate crimes is not significantly high in Chicago, the effects can reverberate through a community,” Chicago police spokeswoman Lt. Maureen Biggane said in an email.
The tally of 10 bona fide hate crimes is sent to the Illinois State Police, who forward the data to the FBI for its annual hate crime statistics report. In addition, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office filed a hate crime charge in another case, bringing the 2011 Chicago tally to 11.
For the past few years, sexual orientation has been among the top biases cited in reported hate crimes in Chicago.
Nationally, people in the LGBT community are more likely to be hate crime victims any other minority group, based on an analysis by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization based in Alabama.
Nationally, there were 6,628 hate crime incidents reported to the FBI in 2010, the most recent data available.
But the numbers aren’t comprehensive and can be misleading, said Mark Potok, senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Some local and state law enforcement agencies don’t report hate crime stats to the FBI, and hate crimes may not be categorized as such even when reported to local authorities, he said.
“Hate crimes are probably the most under-reported crime in America,” Potok said, noting that a 2005 Bureau of Justice Statistics special report found that 55 percent of hate crimes nationwide are not reported to police.
The state hate crime law takes what could be, for example, a simple battery, which is a misdemeanor, and elevates the crime to a felony offense if there’s evidence that shows the crime was motivated by hate, said Dan Kirk, chief of staff for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
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The office looks for evidence such as derogatory language or slurs said before the crime is committed or after the fact.
“The theory behind hate crime prosecution is there’s two victims: the victim in the case and we view the community they come from as a victim as well,” Kirk said. ” These crimes are particularly egregious because they end up promoting fear in an entire community.”
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