Queens borough cabinet looks to halt hate crimes

Acting Borough President Sharon Lee and Queens community board district managers listened to NYPD Deputy Inspector Mark Molinari as he explained the steps communities can take to help law enforcement stop hate crime perpetrators. Eagle photo by Victoria Merlino.

By Victoria Merlino

After a major uptick in hate crimes rocked Queens last year, local leaders are considering ways to keep victims and communities safe. 

Deputy Inspector Mark Molinari, the commanding officer of the NYPD’s Hate Crime Task Force, delivered a presentation at the Queens Borough Cabinet meeting on Tuesday that laid out stark data in the fight against hate crimes. 

“What we saw last year was a huge, huge increase in property damage, drawing of swastikas and other kinds of criminal mischief kinds of cases,” Molinari said. 

The most significant factor in the increase of hate crimes overall was a marked increase in anti-Semitic crimes, according to Molinari.

“About 55 percent of all hate crimes in New York City last year were against the Jewish population,” he said. 

Queens saw 68 reported hate crimes last year, according to Molinari’s data, up from 46 in 2018. Queens had the third-highest amount of hate crimes total, after Brooklyn and Manhattan. 

To combat hate crimes, Molinari detailed steps the present district managers of each community board could take back and share with their neighbors. 

“Education is the biggest thing. Getting the message out to the community about hate crimes. To come to the police, not to fear the police, to trust the police: that’s always the biggest thing,” he said. 

He also stressed the importance of keeping and maintaining video cameras, so that in the event that a crime were to occur, video could be captured and a perpetrator could be caught. 

Queens had a number of high profile hate incidents in 2018, including anti-Semitic flyers left at a subway station in Ridgewood, an attack on a Hindu priest, anti-Semitic messages scrawled on the walls and in the sand of Breezy Point and Belle Harbor and swastikas drawn in a Rego Park schoolyard.