California leaders address low rates of hate crimes prosecution

(From left) Anthony Rodriguez, Jesse Arreguín and Lori Frugoli discuss nationwide efforts to fight hate at the grassroots level, at a Monday, Sept. 23 summit at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club commemorating United Against Hate Week. Photo by Selen Ozturk

With California hate crimes nearly doubled since 2019, local leaders have sparked nationwide efforts to fight hate at the grassroots level amid low prosecution rates.

These efforts, part of an annual United Against Hate Week, began in mid-2017, after neo-Nazis sponsored a protest in Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park that involved bloody altercations between fascist and antifascist groups.

For this year’s proceedings in the week of Sept. 21, events in over 200 communities nationwide include a Unity Walk in Las Vegas sponsored by the US Attorney’s Office and Nevada’s Attorney General; a PBS-led screening and discussion of Repairing the World, a film about Pittsburgh’s response to the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history, the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in 2018; a variety show against hate in Providence, Rhode Island; and resolutions to combat hate in cities throughout the Bay Area.

However, these initiatives often remain grassroots owing to the challenge of prosecuting hate incidents as crimes, if they are reported at all, said Anthony Rodriguez, senior advisor for Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín at a Monday, Sept. 23 summit at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club commemorating United Against Hate Week.

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He suggested that many groups spreading hate nationwide first tested their tactics in the Bay Area, with deadly consequences.

“We’ve seen mass killings of 11 people in Pittsburgh, 10 in Buffalo, nine in Charleston, 23 Latinos in El Paso, seven at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, 49 people at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, and then in Colorado Springs,” added Rodriguez, a United Against Hate organizer, at a panel opening the summit. “These horrific mass shootings that make the news are part of hate that happens daily.”

‘They used Berkeley as a training ground’

“I was elected mayor of Berkeley the same night that Donald Trump was elected president. It was a bittersweet evening, because I immediately saw the impact in my community, and it’s only gotten worse since then,” said Arreguín.

With California hate crimes nearly doubled since 2019, local leaders have sparked nationwide efforts to fight hate at the grassroots level amid low prosecution rates.

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These efforts, part of an annual United Against Hate Week, began in mid-2017, after neo-Nazis sponsored a protest in Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park that involved bloody altercations between fascist and antifascist groups.

For this year’s proceedings in the week of Sept. 21, events in over 200 communities nationwide include a Unity Walk in Las Vegas sponsored by the US Attorney’s Office and Nevada’s Attorney General; a PBS-led screening and discussion of Repairing the World, a film about Pittsburgh’s response to the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history, the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in 2018; a variety show against hate in Providence, Rhode Island; and resolutions to combat hate in cities throughout the Bay Area.

However, these initiatives often remain grassroots owing to the challenge of prosecuting hate incidents as crimes, if they are reported at all, said Anthony Rodriguez, senior advisor for Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín at a Monday, Sept. 23 summit at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club commemorating United Against Hate Week.

He suggested that many groups spreading hate nationwide first tested their tactics in the Bay Area, with deadly consequences.

“We’ve seen mass killings of 11 people in Pittsburgh, 10 in Buffalo, nine in Charleston, 23 Latinos in El Paso, seven at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, 49 people at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, and then in Colorado Springs,” added Rodriguez, a United Against Hate organizer, at a panel opening the summit. “These horrific mass shootings that make the news are part of hate that happens daily.” (Ethnic Media Services)