Anti-Asian Hate Crime up 567 Percent in San Francisco, Data From Police Shows

California is among the states with the highest recent increases in crime, and the situation is particularly worrying in Los Angeles and San Francisco. High property crime incidence has long been registered in San Francisco, which leads the state in larceny, burglary, arson and car theft rates.

In San Francisco, California, hate crimes against Asians and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) increased by more than 567 percent in 2021 compared to the previous year, according to statistics released by the city's police department on Wednesday.

The data shows that the police recorded 60 anti-AAPI hate crimes over the last year, compared to eight in 2019 and nine in 2020.

According to San Francisco’s police chief Bill Scott, one man was responsible for half of the crimes. He was reportedly arrested and his name wasn’t revealed.

“If anybody thinks that San Francisco is an easy place to come in and terrorize our Asian communities, you are sadly mistaken — and you will be held accountable,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday, noting that law enforcement would be present at public Lunar New Year celebrations set to begin next week.

According to the police data, other hate crimes also increased over 2021, including anti-Black (27 percent) and anti-LGBTQ+ (50 percent) hate crimes as well as crimes against Jewish people (60 percent).

“We will do everything we can to make those arrests, to hold perpetrators accountable,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said at a press conference. “I’m angry about the violence that has continued to impact many of the people who are part of our Asian community but especially our seniors.”

San Francisco has long been in the spotlight for an unprecedented crime surge that has been recorded amid declining living standards statewide, the global pandemic and skyrocketing rates of people dying from armed violence across the US.

The city's homicide rate went up 17 percent in 2021, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Burglaries shot up 87 percent in 2020 and another 6 percent in the first 11 months of 2021. Over January this year, cases of burglary nearly doubled in comparison with last year’s data, according to the San Francisco police.

Such crimes, according to the police, are more difficult to track as people do not always contact the police.

According to a poll conducted in June last year, more than 40 percent of local residents said they plan to move out of San Francisco within the next few years. The situation, aggravated by the lack of law enforcement personnel, has also forced many big businesses to leave the city.

California, along with New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Illinois, has seen a massive exodus of around 4 million residents between 2010 and 2019, according to Forbes. The Golden State, which has the largest delegation in the US House of Representatives, is set to lose a congressional seat for the first time in its history due to the dramatic decline in population.