Bias Motivated Incidents, 2010-2014
Between 2010 and 2014, 85 bias motivated incidents were reported in Northwest Indiana. This is a notable decrease from the last four year period (2005-2009) in which the greatest number of incidents was recorded (119). Between 2010 and 2014 Harrassment (22) was still the most reported type of incident followed by swastika graffiti (16). Many of the harassment incidents involved shouting racial slurs. In one such instance in 2011, a man complained that another man repeatedly yelled ethnic slurs at him while out walking. The next two most common types of incidents are discrimination claims (14) and violent assaults (11). This period, has seen the greatest amount of recorded violent assaults with the previous record being 8 in 2000-2004. In one 2011 incident in St. John, a Middle Eastern high school student was called a terrorist and beaten by his peers. A hate crime in 2014 involved a man stabbing a elderly African American woman, later claiming she was more vunerable because of her age and race. In this period there have been two murders with both victims being African American men. There has been only one instance each of KKK activity and cross burning in 2010 and 2012.
Almost twice as many incidents during this period took place in Porter County, continuing the trend seen in the last five-year period from 2005-2009 with 43 incidents (50.6%). Valparaiso had a total of 19 incidents, by itself, almost as many as the entirety of Lake County (28 incidents, 32.9%), and twice as many as in LaPorte County (9 incidents, 11.0%). The incidents in Valparaiso were mostly swastika graffiti and harrassment reflecting the the overall data in this time period.
