A rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans in New York may be far worse than the numbers indicate, fear community leaders, elected officials and members of law enforcement who turned out for a recent community forum.
Bias crimes reported spiked from two in 2014 to 10 last year, but according to the Times Ledger, many at the community meeting appear frustrated that not more victims are coming forward.
“If you don’t report it, how do we actually go to the NYPD to say there’s a trend, there’s a problem?” said State Assemblyman Ron Kim who pointed out many complain to his office but don’t report the crime to police. “We want to encourage our folks to work with us and work with the NYPD so they report all the crimes.”
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Police say incidents can go up after global events such as the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif.
Fear, confusion and a victim’s undocumented status can often lead to crimes going unreported. Many are hopeful new laws in New York can turn that around. An executive order signed by then Mayor Michael Bloomberg bars any New York Police Officer from asking about a crime victim’s immigration status. Last month Mayor Bill DeBlasio announced new visa certification that protects any crime victim from deportation while they assist with the investigation.
You can read more reasons why crime goes unreported in the Times Ledger,
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Reporting it is all that can be done. However most of the time it leads to nothing. The hassle of reporting it and giving a statement, only to not be called back is too common. Many Asians learn the uselessness of reporting crimes. They are too busy, stressed and closed to work with government agencies that do not give them financial or medical aid. It is a sad feature of our ethnic enclaves. We are labelled the model minority even though we are raped, robbed and murdered as well. Where is the outrage over killing, abusing or exploiting our AAPIs? You cannot push the AAPI community to work with other minority groups who can also be violent towards our people and destroy our communities with riots.