While race, sexual orientation and religion are the most likely sources of bias incidents in the state, almost three-quarters of the verified events from the 2021 Maryland Hate Bias Report were based on race, with 61 of the 101 statewide verified incidents being anti-Black or anti-African American.
The next most likely group to be targeted in Maryland was gay males with 11 incidents.
Third was those targeted over their religion, with six of the verified incidents focused on those of the Jewish faith.
The report came from the Maryland Department of State Police in partnership with The Maryland Coordination & Analysis Center, which has been monitoring these incidents for years and collecting available information to track the circumstances.
Overall, there were 387 hate or bias incidents reported in Maryland in 2021. But after more in depth reviews of the reports, only 101 could be verified as hate or bias related.
So, what kinds of incidents are we talking about? One-third are either verbal intimidation or simple assault and 25% are vandalisms.
Many of the incidents happened at homes. One in five were on a street or sidewalk and almost 12% happened at schools.
The overall number of incidents reported stayed pretty even over the past few years, although the number of verified cases were lower in 2021 than in 2020.
Over half the incidents reported and verified were in Baltimore. Without the Baltimore statistics, the numbers look very different by county.
In Montgomery County, there were 130 total reported hate or bias incidents. Eight were verified with a pretty even distribution of incidents against Black, white and Asian residents.
And in Frederick County, seven hate or bias incidents were reported with all the reported individual victims in the verified cases being white people.
In Anne Arundel, the 39 reported cases were mostly race related, and the one verified case was anti-Black.
There were nine incidents reported, with five verified, in Prince George’s County. The targeting was pretty evenly split between race, sexual orientation and religion with three of the victims being Black.
The 2021 Maryland Hate Bias Report is available online.
