Hate-crime killings set a record in 2019, new FBI data reveals

Hate-crime murders reached a record last year in the United States, due in large part to the mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, that officials say was motivated by anti-immigrant bias, according to new figures released Monday by the FBI.

There were 51 hate crime killings in 2019, the highest number since the FBI began tabulating such figures in the early 1990s.

The 2019 data also showed a significant increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes, rising 14% from the prior year, which accounted for almost all growth in religiously motivated bias crimes. Bias crimes targeting Muslims declined slightly, while those targeting Christians remained nearly flat.

While religiously motivated hate crimes increased, those targeting people for their race, ethnicity or ancestry declined slightly overall — despite the bloodshed in Texas.

The FBI’s annual report showed that, broadly, hate crimes rose 2.7% in 2019, after declining slightly the year before. Bias crimes targeting people for their sexual orientation stayed level, with 1,195 reported incidents.

The FBI’s hate crimes data is the most comprehensive in the country, but critics say it offers an incomplete portrait of bias incidents due to the small percentage of police agencies that report such crimes to the FBI.

Last year’s data also marked a downturn in the overall number of police agencies providing crime data to the FBI, from 16,039 to 15,558. And within that smaller figure, only 2,172, or 14%, reported one or more hate crimes occurring in their jurisdiction. Advocates say that suggests these types of crimes are still underreported.

Margaret Huang, the president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, said the figures “do not tell the full story. Hate crimes are consistently underreported due to the federal government’s failure to mandate hate crime data collection at the state and local levels.”