Staten Island, NY – Since January, nine reported crimes in the borough have been designated as hate crimes by the police, NYPD Assistant Chief Albert Girimonte, the Staten Island borough commander, told roughly 25 members of the borough’s Anti Bias Task Force during a meeting at Borough Hall.
All but one of the incidents were racially tinged graffiti, and no arrests have been made thus far, Giramonte said.
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“How does it happen that you get it in your head that you want to go and beat somebody up and take their money?” District Attorney Daniel Donovan asked. “I don’t believe in the argument that kids get bored and they go smash windows in the synagogue. It’s not boredom. It’s something else,” Donovan said.
“On the surface it’s an absolutely wonderful place to live, but on the inside it’s a very fractious community,” Dr. Ronald Sheppard, of Grymes Hill, said about Staten Island. “There’s a lack of understanding and communication.”
For every one of the bias crimes identified by police, hundreds more go unreported or unnoticed and create the tenor of life here, task force members agreed.
“These numbers we look at are not the true picture,” said Salman Zafar of the Staten Island Muslim Association. “The true picture is out on the street, where small things are happening and we’re not addressing them.”