California Attorney General Rob Bonta met with San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Police Chief Bill Scott, and community leaders on Sept. 9 in the city’s Visitacion Valley to have a discussion on hate crimes.

The event was the first in a series of roundtable discussions being held by Bonta with leaders throughout the state, focusing on developing strategies to address bias and hate, and strengthening responses to crimes.

“An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. We will continue to stand in solidarity and here in San Francisco we will do everything we can to bring perpetrators of crimes of this nature to justice,” Breed said.

“The fact that Attorney General Bonta is doing these roundtables not just here but throughout the state, in all of the major cities, is so key to turning things around and keeping people safe,” she said. “We will be working together hand-in-hand on policy changes, on investments, and on whatever needs to be done so that no one has to be a victim of crime in any part of our city or our state.”

“San Francisco has been a leader and a model in its policies and approaches that lift people up and make our communities stronger,” Bonta said. “I was very inspired and I’m leaving very hopeful and optimistic about our shared future and our common commitment to addressing the epidemic of hate crimes, that spike in hate incidents has impacted so many communities. No community is immune.”

According to Bonta’s office, in 2020 California experienced a 31 percent increase in hate crimes. In addition, anti-Asian hate crimes in the state increased by 107 percent.

Also, in San Francisco, anti-gay hate crimes accounted for more than 25 percent of all hate crimes over the last 10 years.

“For so many of our communities, right now we are in a full-on state of crisis, a full-on state of emergency when it comes to hate. The statistics are alarming and shocking,” Bonta said.

According to San Francisco police, so far this year there have been 83 reported hate crimes, with 49 of those hate crimes being committed against Asian victims.

However, of those 49 crimes against Asians, 30 were committed by just one perpetrator, who has since been arrested, Scott said.

“We will not tolerate this. There’s no place for this in our and there’s no place for this in our state. And we want to hold those accountable who commit these acts,” he said. “These are very difficult situations because in addition that the reported hate crimes meet the statutory panacea of evidence that constitutes a hate crime, we know that there other incidents that don’t amount to crimes that are happening day-in and day-out. We need those reported too.”

SFPD has set up a Hate Crime Tip Line for reporting such crimes, which offers assistance in nine languages and can be reached at (415) 558-5588.