Reporting Hate Crimes & Bias Incidents

Crisis Connections phone workers answer the Stop Hate Hotline. With over 60 years of experience providing telephonic crisis support, the organization understands the importance of each and every call and provides compassionate support to everyone who calls for help.
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Phone workers will help determine if the caller or the person who experienced harm needs professional support and will connect them to the appropriate services.

By reporting hate crimes and bias incidents, callers provide information that helps identify patterns, which inform community organizations’ targeted prevention and response strategies. When people speak up, they help protect their community and show that hate has no place here. No incident is too small to report.

Reports to the Stop Hate hotline do not initiate a law enforcement investigation. Callers who are feeling unsafe or feel the incident should be reported to law enforcement should hang up and dial 911 for emergencies or their local non-emergency police line for non-emergencies.

Call the Hotline if you, someone you know, or someone you witnessed has experienced a hate crime or bias incident. The Stop Hate Hotline will document the incident and can provide support and resources.
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If you are experiencing an immediate threat or emergency, please call 911.

A hate crime, defined by RCW 9A.36.080(1), involves assault, property damage or destruction, or threats that cause reasonable fear of harm to a person or property. They are committed with the intent to harm someone based on the perpetrator’s perception of the person’s:

• Race
• Color
• Religion
• Ancestry
• National origin
• Gender or gender expression or identity
• Sexual orientation
• Mental, physical, or sensory disability

A hate crime must include both the act of one of the three specified crimes and a biased motivation. Hate crimes are intended to induce fear, intimidate, or cause psychological harm to the person or people perceived to be a part of a group.

They are about perception. Even if a person is not actually part of a protected group, targeting them because they are believed to belong to that group is still a hate crime.

A bias incident, defined by RCW 43.10.305(5)(a), is an expression of hostility or hatred towards another person that does not amount to a crime but is based on their actual or perceived characteristics as listed in RCW 9A.36.080(1) and above, or RCW 49.60.030(1), which expands the list to add creed, citizenship or immigration status, sex, veteran or military status, and use of a trained dog guide or service animal by a person with a disability. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following when done as expressions of hostility:

• Using a racial, ethnic, or immigration-related slur or similar degrading language to identify someone
• Displaying racist or derogatory images/drawings to a person perceived to have the characteristics being insulted
• Imitating someone with a disability or imitating someone’s cultural value or practice

Hate crimes and bias incidents can both be physical, verbal, or visual, and can be a singular incident or recurring.