Just days after District officials announced a rise in hate crimes against Blacks and those within the LGBTQI community, local non-profit Casa Ruby reported a third attack on its premises in two weeks.
This assault, caught on surveillance March 12, allegedly shows Andrew Cook, the suspect police took into custody March 13, walking onto the property – a celebrated LGBT community center and advocacy group – violently hurl an object at one of the employees, and later throw a brick through the front door of the business.
“Unfortunately, we’ve seen a pattern that people begin with threats and then deliver on their promises,” Ruby Corado, the executive director and founder of the organization, told NewChannel8, following the incident. “I used to get a lot of threats. Now they’re showing up here.” She said the altercations are becoming more frequent and harder to predict, ranging from threats to acts of violence.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Acting Police Chief Peter Newsham joined D.C. officials on March 10, at a press conference, to release bias-related crime data and plans by the city to better prevent and treat occurrences.
“We value diversity and inclusivity and want all of our residents and visitors to feel safe. No matter your race, your faith, your sexual orientation, your gender identity, your background – you should be able to live, work, and play in Washington, D.C. without fear of violence or discrimination,” Bowser told the group of about 75. “My administration will continue fostering a culture that encourages people to come forward when they are the victim of discrimination or a bias-related crime because in order to properly address these issues, we need everyone to feel safe reporting them.”
Over the past two years, total crime in the District decreased by nine percent, including a 10 percent decrease in all violent crime citywide between 2015-2016, with a 17 percent reduction in homicides and a 13 percent reduction in robberies. However, the number of hate crimes reported to police in D.C. grew by roughly 45 percent from 107 hate crimes in 2016, up from 66 the year before. And while bias-related crimes related to race were down 26 percent, significant increases were reported in four categories: ethnicity/national origin, religion, gender identity/expression, and sexual orientation.
“The Metropolitan Police Department is committed to safeguarding residents and visitors in Washington, D.C. and providing fair, unbiased and constitutional policing,” said Newsham. “We want to make it absolutely clear that we value the District’s diversity and that we will not tolerate hatred in our community.”
Precious Wilson, a transwoman who attended the press conference to hear the new data, told the {AFRO} she was concerned about the intersection of race and gender where reporting hate crimes may focus on either race or gender, rather than both. “The data is saying that these crimes are specific to gender bias, but the majority of people impacted in the trans world – at least in D.C. – are African-American, which means that the crimes perpetrated against someone like me may be as much for me being Black as for me being trans,” Wilson said. “I may be a target specifically because I am Black and one of these young Black crews, see me and want to attack me or it may be because I am trans and with Trump in office, people feel it is okay to attack people who are different from them, or both. I applaud the city for taking a stand against hate crimes, but there is work to be done to adjust the language to include the overlap of categories.”