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Sheriff's hate-crime coordinator outlines what qualifies as a hate crime and urges reporting
Summary
Detective Doherty of the LA County Major Crimes Bureau explained the legal distinction between hate crimes and hate incidents, confidentiality options for victims, countywide tracking and training, and the importance of reporting incidents even when no crime occurred.
Detective Doherty, countywide hate-crime coordinator with the LA County Sheriff's Major Crimes Bureau, briefed the commission on how deputies distinguish hate crimes from hate incidents, how reports are recorded, and what direct steps are available to victims.
Doherty said a hate crime is a criminal act or attempt motivated by the victim's perceived or actual traits covered by penal code categories (race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, association), while a hate incident is noncriminal speech or distribution of hateful material without associated criminal acts. He stressed that deputies will take a police report on incidents for documentation even when criminal charges do not apply and that prior bias incidents can help prove motive in later prosecutions.
Doherty urged community members to report incidents, noting that incidents help build evidentiary patterns: "A person that is acting in a certain way might do more than just talk." Commissioners asked about online reporting options countywide; Doherty said the sheriff's department is exploring online hate-incident reporting but currently prefers in-person or deputy-mediated assessments to avoid misclassification.
