6. Bellevue, WA
Increase: 16
Bellevue ranks 6th on our list of US cities where hate crimes are increasing. It is one of the smallest cities on our list with the population of 141,000. In 2015, there were only two hate crimes in the area. Next year the number of hate offenses rose to 18. Of these, 13 were religiously motivated, mainly against Muslim community. At the beginning of 2017, another crime which appeared to be religiously motivated happened in Bellevue when the homeless man set fire to a city’s mosque. However, police officials claimed that the arsonist did not commit the crime because “people who worshiped there were Muslim,” but because of “personal vendetta.”
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