Guelph’s chief of police says the 16 hate crimes incidents recorded by police in the city last year is 16 too many.
Statistics Canada data released late last week shows a 60 per cent rise in hate crime incidents in Guelph, from 10 in 2016 to 16 in 2017.
“Obviously I would like to see it be zero every year,” said DeRuyter. “I still have no problem saying 16 is 16 more than we should have in our community.”
The 60 per cent increase in hate crimes in Guelph was greater than the national average, which increased 47 per cent over the 2016 data.
Hate crimes are defined by Stats Canada as incidents which are found to have been motivated by hatred toward an identifiable group.
Four of the 16 incidents occurred during criminal offences. Three involved assaults and one occurred during a robbery.
“In the course of committing an assault or a robbery there was comments made that would put it in the classification of a hate crime based on the comments made,” said DeRuyter.
The other 12 incidents involved graffiti or written material that was posted publicly.
DeRuyter said the written materials were racist, antisemitic or homophobic in nature. Some of the material referenced multiple groups.
“Typically it’s put in a place where the public is going to see it and it comes to our attention and is clearly offensive,” said DeRuyter. “I am glad it comes to our attention so we can try to identify the offender.”
Charges were laid in the four criminal offences. DeRuyter couldn’t say with certainty if any charges were laid in regards to the graffiti and written material incidents.
The Guelph statistics include incidents investigated by the Guelph Police Service, as well as the University of Guelph Police.
Seven of the incidents recorded in 2017 were investigated by University of Guelph Police, while Guelph Police Service investigated nine of them.
DeRuyter said he didn’t want to downplay the 16 incidents by calling them a small amount of the crimes in the city.
“This is not what we are as a community. When we do get these offences we investigate them with the intent of holding people accountable,” said DeRuyter. “The alternative is something where, when we look around the world, tragic things occur. I think we have to be vigilant to those kind of attitudes within our own community.”
