Ohio records record-high hate crimes in 2020 after state submits updated data to FBI

Hate crimes surged to potentially record levels in Ohio last year, and Black people are among those most likely to be the target of such attacks.

That's according to updated tallies the state submitted to the FBI after a technical glitch caused Ohio to drastically underreport its 2020 figures for the bureau's annual hate crimes report that it issued Aug. 30.

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A record 580 hate crimes were reported in Ohio last year, according to figures provided by Bret Crow, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Public Safety. Those figures match preliminary data provided to The Dispatch by Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino.

However, the FBI still has to certify the new tally before including it on its online database, leaving the possibility that the figure will be reduced if the agency determines that some of the reported incidents do not meet its standards for verified hate crimes.

Such was the case in 2019, when Ohio submitted 410 hate crimes and the FBI ultimately decided on 346 as the state's final reporting number for the year.

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But between 2019 and 2020, the hate crimes that Ohio reported to the FBI increased by 41.5%, according to Ohio Incident-Based Reporting System data provided by Levin.

If confirmed by the FBI, those 580 Ohio hate crimes would be the most in the state since the federal government began tracking such data 30 years ago, and would be the highest tally for Ohio since 2016, when 471 such attacks were verified by the FBI.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said his office has engaged with and will continue to work with affected communities. 

“I am bothered to my core by these numbers," he said in a statement. "America is about the dignity and worth of every human being — all of us created equal, from the strongest to the weakest, from the wise to the foolish … Black, brown and white, of whatever faith or none at all."

Hate, he said, is the opposite of those values and should be called out and prosecuted when it produces criminal action. His office has a workshop for its upcoming law enforcement conference on the topic of recognizing hate crimes, he said. 

Crow confirmed that the 34 hate crimes the state initially reported for 2020 was a technical glitch. The FBI updates its online database quarterly, Crow said, adding that he expects the correct 2020 numbers for Ohio to appear around December.

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In Ohio, people who are Black have most often been the victims of hate crimes in recent years. Black people were targeted 129 times in 2020, an increase from 92 in 2019, according to the state's preliminary data.

White people in Ohio were targeted in hate crimes 104 times, according to the new figures. In 2019, Ohio reported 59 bias attacks on white people to the federal government. 

This year, Ohio has had its share of high-profile hate crime incidents.

In July, a 21-year-old man from Hillsboro was thwarted in an alleged plot to arm himself with a machine gun to kill women in a mass shooting at Ohio State University after federal prosecutors arrested and charged him with a hate crime.

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In March, a 66-year-old Columbus man was charged with a federal hate crime for shouting anti-Semitic slurs and threats at two of his Olde Towne East neighbors. He faces up to a year in prison after pleading guilty in late June to a reduced misdemeanor count of interfering with the right to fair housing.

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Ohio's new 2020 figures would mean that hate crimes increased across the nation by nearly 14% — from 7,287 in 2019 to 8,305 in 2020. That would be the third-highest tally recorded in the United States since 1991 when the FBI began tracking hate crimes by collecting voluntary law enforcement data.

Eric Lagatta is a reporter at the Columbus Dispatch covering public safety, breaking news and social justice issues. Reach him at elagatta@dispatch.com. Follow him on Twitter @EricLagatta