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By: YUSEF NAJAFI COMMENTS
 
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other jurisdictions around us, they are still
reporting in the hundreds and it would be naive of us to think that we have
that much less hate bias crime going around in our jurisdiction, so this increase
is simply an adjustment toward reality,” he said.
Maryland reported 248 hate crimes, 20 of which were said to be motivated by
sexual orientation. Virginia reported 280, with 34 listed under sexual orientation.
“For years we buried our heads in the sand, and believed that somehow
here in D.C. we were unique and that hate crimes did not occur at the same rate
as the rest of the world. That’s simply not true, the problem we’ve
had, and the problem we’ve been working on, is better training and education
for our officers, coupled with educating the community and working on that relationship,”
Parson said.
“It’s not often that you hear any police say, ‘I hope to
see crime go up’, but I hope to see that number go up, because it does
not reflect new crime, it reflects what’s been reported,” he said.
Yusef Najafi can be reached at ynajafi@washblade.com.
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