FBI statistics have shown an 11% increase in homophobic hate crimes in the last year. In general, hate crimes rose only 2%, but there was a dramatic increase in anti-gay crimes, particularly against young men. One third of the attacks involved physical battery, the rest involved property damage and intimidation.
This new report is all too timely for many local Texans, who are still grieving the death of 16 year-old Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado, who was recently murdered in Houston in what many believe was a hate crime against his sexuality.
“Coming just weeks after President Obama signed new LGBT-inclusive hate crimes provisions, the rise in reported hate crimes against the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community is sobering, whether due to increased reporting or increased frequency of the crimes, or both. We all must do more to send the message that these attacks are unacceptable,” said Jason Marsden, executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation.
Houston criminal lawyers, while sympathetic to the impact of these statistics, worry that an increased attention to homophobic hate crimes may result in more people being charged with hate crimes, even in cases when crimes were not based on a person’s sexual orientation. The issue remains one of the complex problems in the prosecution of hate crimes –how to tell what a suspect’s motives were at the time a crime took place.
To read more about the FBI findings, see the article in Pink News. Image Via dbking [Flickr]