SAN FRANCISCO — Violent crimes and other hate incidents against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans are consistently not reported and prosecuted because of chronic distrust between the LGBTQ community and police.

Nearly 300,000 crimes may have been committed against people across the United States because of their sexual orientation from 2012 to 2016, according to a News21 analysis of data from the federal National Crime Victimization Survey, which tens of thousands of American households fill out each year.

“There are people that are hurting right now who don't trust the police and also don't feel comfortable coming forward or speaking up,” said Sheryl Evans Davis, executive director of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. “Until we have an increase of people reporting things, then we could be doing (more). We're still not really doing enough for them.”

U.S. Department of Justice documents for the relatively few federally prosecuted hate crime cases since 2009 tell stories of beatings, robberies, slurs, profanities and fatalities targeting LGBTQ individuals.

Credit by - the Center for Public Integrity

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