TAYLORSVILLE, Utah — It happens every year, when rainbow flags are put out across the state for Pride month.
"We see about 10% of our flags go missing or get vandalized every year. That’s been since we started in 2018," said Lucas Horns, the director of Project Rainbow.
Horns said they put out about 6,000 flags a year in neighborhoods and in front of businesses across Utah. Of those 600 or so that are vandalized, a majority are stolen.
"We do have a small number that get spray painted or torn up or even lit on fire," Horns said.
Utah's Department of Public Safety has recorded an increase in hate crimes across the state.
Data provided to FOX 13 News ahead of a Thursday public release shows the agency verified 96 hate crimes in 2021 across the state. Most of those were vandalisms and simple assaults, the agency's Bureau of Criminal Identification said.
"We have seen an increase, and it does like it is a true increase," said Mandy Biesinger, a field service supervisor with the bureau. "But with the more accurate reporting."
That's because of new state laws and policies requiring every police agency in Utah to document whether a crime had a hate or bias component to it. The law went into effect in 2018 and new DPS policies went into effect last year. Agencies will note whether there was a hate crime or not, and DPS will verify whether that is accurate.
Biesinger said 2021 provides the clearest picture yet of hate crimes in Utah. But it still depends on people reporting crimes to law enforcement. There are signs community members are more willing to report them.
"If they report the incident to law enforcement and law enforcement does the investigation, they capture that," said Biesinger. "If more people are coming forward, we are going to see an increase in those."
DPS defines a hate crime as "a criminal offense committed against a person or property which is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender's bias against a race, religion, ethnic/national origin group, sexual orientation group, or disability."
DPS publicizes the data in an online dashboard. The agency also verified some of its 2021 numbers to FOX 13 News on Wednesday as police agencies across Utah clarified whether they were hate crimes. Based on the information, incidents targeting LGBTQ people were the top reported hate crimes (33 in 2021, which the agency includes as a blanket category and also parses by crimes targeting lesbians, gay men, transgender people and bisexuals), followed by 13 incidents targeting Hispanic or Latino people and nine targeting Black people. DPS also registers whether incidents target a specific religious group (for example, there were seven reported anti-Mormon crimes in 2021).
While 2022 numbers are included in the dashboard, DPS said those will not be verified until Spring. The data is used to help law enforcement be aware of what communities to do outreach with and also to recognize trends. Utah has a separate law that allows prosecutors to seek an enhancement in penalty if someone is charged with an offense that is proven to be a hate crime.
Bridget Shears, who chairs the state's Martin Luther King Jr. Human Rights Commission called the reported hate crime numbers "distressing."
"All the same, just because in the Black community, being such a small percentage of the population in Utah, it does kind of break my heart to see that we have a number of hate crimes in our communities in this state," she said.
Shears said it was good though to see more people stepping up. She believed the data could help inform policies on how law enforcement recognizes hate crimes and ways to prevent them.
"Once we start reporting it on a regular basis, then we definitely see those numbers go up. But it’s good that we’re seeing... there’s visibility to the fact that these things are happening in our communities and maybe we can get in front of it," Shears said.
The vandalism that Project Rainbow deals with does not stop their work, Horns said.
"If anything, it just makes people all the more intentional about being visible," Horns said. "My message to people when their flag gets stolen or vandalized is this just shows why it’s important to be visible and outwardly supportive of queer people and prideful if you are a queer person. Because it’s that visibility and exposure that breaks down hatred."
