Religious hate crimes spike as cops and prosecutors declare war
The top prosecutor for California’s largest county on Thursday identified a disturbing new trend.Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman said hate crimes targeting religion have skyrocketed in the region, even as the overall number of hate crimes has fallen slightly.“Religious-based hate crimes have actually spiked in the last two years,” explained Hochman at a press conference at the Hall of Justice.“We are going after those religious-based hate criminals with the full panoply of laws that we have to go after them,” he added.A string of alleged religious-based hate crimes have grabbed headlines in LA this year, including an incident where an influencer’s Buddha statue was smashed and the case of a raisin heir who allegedly screamed vile slurs at a Jewish neighbor.Hochman, who did not provide figures on hate crimes targeting religion, said that overall number of reported hate crimes in LA County has fallen slightly this year, although his office is conducting more prosecutions this year compared to 2025.Hochman filed seven hate crime cases in 2024 and 39 in 2025.
So far he has filed 35 such cases this year.Reported hate crimes are down 4% this year vs same time last year and down from their peak in 2023 of 838 reported hate crimes that year, based on based on police department data for city of Los Angeles.As of June 20, 2026, the Los Angeles Police Department tallied 460 hate crimes in the city of LA, including 65 assaults.A report issued in December by the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations found that there were 1,355 reported hate crimes in Los Angeles County in 2024, the second-highest total ever counted.The year before was the highest ever, with 1,367 hate crimes in LA county counted in 2023.
The comprehensive report found that, in both years, blacks were the most common targets of hate crimes, followed by LBGTQ people, followed by Jews.The 2025 Hate Crime in California report issued by the state of California last month found ...