NYPD will break out hate crimes in stat reports

January 7, 2020 Paula Katinas

The two separate incidents took place on Monday night, Memorial Day. Photo by Scott Roth/Invision/AP

NYPD vehicle. Photo by Scott Roth/Invision/AP

Share this:

In the wake of a surge of anti-Semitic incidents in New York City, the NYPD will start including hate crimes in its crime-tracking system, police officials announced on Monday.

Police Commissioner Dermot Shea told reporters at a press conference that inclusion of hate crimes in CompStat will begin within the coming months, the Staten Island Advance reported. “The best way to fight crime is to shine a light on it,” Shea said, according to the Advance .

There have been 13 anti-Semitic incidents in New York City since Dec. 10, according to the NYPD.

The hate crimes included a Dec. 27 assault on an Orthodox Jewish woman in Gravesend who was walking with her 3-year-old son when she was struck in the head by a woman who allegedly yelled an anti-Semitic slur. The suspect, Ayana Logan, was charged with assault as a hate crime and endangering the welfare of a child.

In another incident, a suspect slapped three Orthodox Jewish women across the face on a Crown Heights street on Dec. 26. The suspect, Tiffany Harris, was charged with misdemeanor assault.

Anti-Semitic hate crimes increased by 26 percent in 2019, NYPD statistics showed. There were 234 anti-Semitic incidents in 2019, as compared to 186 incidents in 2018. Overall, hate crimes in New York City went up 20 percent in 2019. There were 428 hate crimes reported in 2019. In 2018, there were 256.

CompStat, short for computer statistics, is a data-driven method through which the NYPD tracks major crimes and some misdemeanors on a precinct by precinct basis, allowing precinct commanders to target their resources.

Until now, the NYPD has been releasing statistics on hate crimes, but has not included hate crimes in the database. The upcoming change is significant, said Councilmember Mark Treyger, who had been pushing police officials toward it.

“As hate crimes continue to rise, our city must do everything possible to make sure all New Yorkers are safe. By adding hate crimes data to CompStat reports, it will be as transparent as other crimes on the local level,” Treyger, who represents Coney Island, Gravesend and parts of Bensonhurst, said in a statement.

Treyger and Councilmember Donovan Richards, a Queens Democrat who chairs the Public Safety Committee, sent a letter in October to then-commissioner James O’Neill requesting that hate crimes be part of CompStat. When Shea took over the position, the lawmakers wrote a second letter to him.

The change is coming not a minute too soon, according to Treyger. “Tragically, since both of these letters have been sent, there have been more horrific hate crimes committed throughout the city and the metro area,” he said. “Adding hate crimes to CompStat is one more tool to help combat rising hate.”