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Florida hate crimes on rise

St. Petersburg had the greatest number of hate crime incidents, though Wednesday's report must be carefully interpreted.

By JAMIE THOMPSON
Published December 28, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - A six-hour period of black on white violence 19 months ago has earned St. Petersburg an unpleasant distinction in a new state report: The city with the most hate crimes in 2004.

Attorney General Charlie Crist released his annual report on Wednesday, which showed that Pinellas County reported the highest number of hate crimes across Florida in 2004. Most of the county's incidents - 78 percent - occurred in St. Petersburg.

Police Chief Chuck Harmon cut his holiday vacation short to have a press conference, calling the numbers an aberration. He said they largely were the result of one evening of civil unrest on May 12, in which a group of about 125 people, mostly black, threw bricks and bottles at drivers, mostly white. In the worst of the violence, one man's face was beaten so badly that he needed reconstructive surgery.

Throughout the report, the attorney general's staff cautioned against making overbroad generalizations about any area based on the numbers. Some agencies, they noted, report hate crimes far more vigorously than others. Thirty four of the state's 67 counties reported no hate crimes at all.

Harmon and other community leaders said race relations have improved since that turbulent evening in 2004, and that the numbers are not a reliable barometer.

"We've grown as a community," Harmon said. "We've put that behind us."

However, others say the city is perpetually on the edge of another civil disturbance in Midtown.

"When something goes wrong, we try to patch it up, then we go back to business as usual," said the Rev. Louis Murphy of Mount Zion Progressive Missionary Baptist Church in St. Petersburg. "We should be dealing with it in a time of peace."

Statewide, the number of reported hate crimes rose by 21.5 percent in 2004, the third-highest annual total since reporting began in 1990, according to the attorney general's office. The total of 334 hate crimes was only one shy of 2001, when police believe anger over the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks led to spike in the numbers. The majority of crimes - nearly 57 percent - were fueled by race, followed by sexual orientation, at almost 16 percent, then ethnicity and religion.

"We'd certainly rather the numbers be down instead of up," said Attorney General Charlie Crist. "But we believe they're up because of better reporting by local law enforcement."

[Last modified December 28, 2005, 20:03:02]