Asian and Jewish community leaders and elected officials gathered here Monday at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center to remember the hate crime victims and urged the U.S. congress to pass a thoughtfully-crafted hate crime bill.
Ten years ago, a shooting took place at the North Valley Jewish Community Center which left five people, four of them children, wounded and ended the life of Filipino American Joseph Ileto. The tragedy shocked Californians who live in one of the most racially and religiously diverse states in the U.S. Ileto and other people were shot by an avowed white supremacist who hated Asians, Jews and other ethnic group members.
Family members of Ileto and other victims spoke at the meeting and called for the U.S. Congress to pass a hate crime bill to prosecute crimes targeting minorities and people with different sexual orientations or religious belief.
The death of Ileto and other victims has prompted California legislators to sponsor Bill SB 1234, which passed both house in 2004 and was signed into law in September the same year and became effective in January 2005.
However, hate crimes continue to plague the community. According to the hate crime report for 2007, the latest statistics available, hate crimes in Los Angeles County rose 28 percent in 2007, from 594 to 763, the highest in five years.
The most common type of hate crimes were those motivated by racial and ethnic or national origin bias. Racial hate crimes consisted of 68 percent of the total. Anti-African American crimes consisted of 58 percent, while anti-Latino crimes consisted of 23 percent. Crimes against Asians also rose.
