‘Quite startling’: Hate crimes spike since mass shooting attack against Islamic Center

Muslims, Jews and the LGBTQ+ community have been the biggest targets.

Times of San Diego

Two months after a mass shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, the community is still reeling.

The San Diego Anti-Hate Coalition says that over a two-month period since the fatal attack, the region saw the largest increase in hate crimes documented by the San Diego City Attorney’s office in four years.   

The hate-crime targets run the gamut from Muslims to members of the LGBTQ community.

“This two-month period is the largest increase in our hate crimes that we’ve gotten in our office since 2022, which is quite startling,” Daniel Korchnoy, chief of special investigations with the City Attorney’s office, told the coalition this week. The organization includes representatives of non-governmental organizations, community groups and law enforcement agencies.

“It could be just a reaction to everything going on right now.”

Korchnoy and other attendees spoke about the continuing ripple effects of the May 18 shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, where a security guard and two others were killed by two teen gunmen.

The meeting, like previous coalition gatherings, included organizations with different perspectives, like the Anti-Defamation League and the Council of American-Islamic Relations. 

“There is still fear within the Muslim community,” said Omar Abusham, who does outreach for CAIR. That fear, he said, is not only present at the Islamic Center of San Diego, but is also palpable at several of the 17 other mosques in the region.

“They have experienced some type of hate crime or hate incidents,” he said. “It depends on how you want to classify it. They have been receiving mail as well as phone calls, text messages, and emails as well.”

“Some of that activity is coordinated,” said Det. Doug Roysdon from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office.

“They do target mosques or community organizations that happen to be Muslim,” he said, “but there are a lot of sporadic, random (messages), whether it’s a TikTok video mentioning the Islamic Center of San Diego or some chatter on news issues on social media.”