DENVER (KDVR) — Denver Police have added extra patrols to Asian American communities in the Mile High City, following the killing of multiple Asian American women at metropolitan Atlanta massage parlors.
Bias-motivated crimes against Asian Americans are on the rise, according to new data released by the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center.
That report showed roughly 3,800 racist incidents have been reported since the pandemic began, including 44 incidents in Colorado.
But according to DPD, only three bias-motivated crimes against Asians were reported in the city last year.
“Reporting is just culturally something we’re not comfortable doing,” says Joie Ha of Denver. “Some of it is from shame, a lot of it is from fear.”
Ha says she’s been the victim of anti-Asian racism more times than she can count, but says she’s never reported the crimes.
“They’re called micro-aggressions, like folks saying to me ‘oh you speak really good English for an Asian,’ or ‘when did you get here?’ Or ‘how do you like it here?’ Even though I was born and raised here,” Ha said.
Thursday night, Ha helped organize a virtual town hall, called Addressing Anti-Asian Hate.
The town hall included plenty of discussions regarding the reporting of hate crimes in Denver, which can be done anonymously.
Other findings from that research:
● Women report hate incidents 2.3 times more than men.
● Youths (0 to 17 years old) report 12.6% of incidents and seniors (60 years old and older) report 6.2% of the total incidents.
● Chinese are the largest ethnic group (42.2%) that report experiencing hate, followed by Koreans (14.8%), Vietnamese (8.5%), and Filipinos (7.9%).
● Incident reports come from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
● Businesses are the primary site of discrimination (35.4%), followed by public streets (25.3%), and public parks (9.8%). Online incidents account for 10.8% of the total incidents.