COMBATING HATE CRIMES

Queens is the home of diversity and tolerance. There is no place in our borough for division and hate.

But the past few years, we have seen our country divided, and unfortunately we have also seen our divisions in our borough. This has shown itself with an increase of hate crimes and bias incidents. This must stop now. While the pandemic paused many of our lives, we still saw a 99% increase of bias incidents.

The New York Police Department confirms what we all know. There has been anincrease of anti-Asian and anti-Semitic hate crimes. This hatred is rooted in ignorance. We must stamp it out.

There is much work to do as a city in order to protect communities most susceptible to acts of hate. We can do better to protect vulnerable communities and we must strengthen those institutions so they bring justice. I am demanding that the NYPD change it’s threshold on what we consider hate crimes.

Too often people face violence and are told it’s not a hate crime. But we know better. Our communities understand the impact of structural and systemic racism, and implicit bias. We know when the acts against us are petty nonsense and when they are an attack on our identity and our very existence.

The city needs to provide more funding to expand the Commission’s Bias Response Team and education efforts to help dispel myths and combat these acts of hate.

I am calling on law enforcement agencies, tasked with combatting these acts of hate and discrimination, to create a central database for information sharing, so they work closer together in addressing acts of hate – whether they are bias incidents or hate crimes.

In order for all are welcome in Queens, we must lead the way. We will work to combat hate crimes, bias incidents, and other acts of hate and discrimination. Let’s send a message to the world that all are welcome in our borough. Let’s get to work.