Over the last few years, the frequency of hate crime in Los Angeles has been staggering. Shootings, vandalism, verbal abuse, and other forms of antisemitic crimes have unfortunately become all too common. Following the events of October 7, the number of incidents in Los Angeles has risen even further.

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has encouraged the reporting of all incidents of antisemitism, even those that do not amount to a hate crime, so that the community can receive the proper attention and allocation of LAPD resources. But many victims did not report their experiences because of the inefficient and time-consuming reporting process. To report a hate incident, individuals would call the LAPD and wait for an officer to arrive on the scene to take a report in person. Often people felt that the scale of the incident was not worth the hassle involved in reporting it.

But reporting antisemitic incidents provides the LAPD with vital information about the frequency of hate crimes and where such events take place, enabling them to provide resources where necessary and prevent such events from recurring. To encourage crime reporting, Agudath Israel of America’s California Office, along with other organizations, partnered with the LAPD to add hate crimes to the crime categories able to be reported in the Community Online Reporting System (CORS), the LAPD’s easily accessible and user-friendly method of crime reporting.

Accessible through the LAPD website, CORS asks a series of clear questions and provides a space for the person reporting to describe their experience in their own words. Enabling hate crimes to be reported through CORS makes it significantly easier to alert the LAPD about hate crimes, encouraging more people to report such incidents. Agudath Israel will also train trusted members of the community to assist in filling out the police reports.

“Agudath Israel is proud to be a leader on the task force that advocated for and helped develop the updated platform,” said Rabbi Yaakov Subar, director of Agudah’s California Office. “Streamlining the hate crime reporting system and enlisting the help of our own community members is a vital step in maintaining the safety of our community.”

To report a hate crime through CORS, click here or visit https://www.lapdonline.org/file-a-police-report/.