Report: Hate crimes surge post-election

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reported Tuesday that more than 400 incidents of harassment or intimidation have occurred since president-elect Donald Trump’s victory a week ago.

{mosads}A plurality of the incidents, more than 130, were anti-immigrant involved SPLC reported. Anti-black incidents and anti-LGBTQ incidents were also reported in high numbers.

According to the SPLC, most harassment occurred in K-12 schools, followed by businesses and universities.

The SPLC said it based its report off information from news reports, social media and direct submissions to the group. It did not follow up to confirm reports made through individual submissions.

Confirmed reports from NBC News include: The words “Trump Nation, Whites Only” found written on the walls of the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour in Silver Spring, Md. on Sunday; A campus safety alert issued Sunday by the University of Michigan after a Muslim student told police a white male said he would “set her on fire,” if she didn’t remove her hijab; and a police investigation of graffiti reading “Make America White Again,” on the wall of a softball field in New York, which appeared just hours after Trump won the election. 

According to the FBI’s annual “Hate Crime Statistics” report released Monday, 2015 saw a 6 percent increase in hate crimes. Almost 60 percent of those hate crime victims were targeted because of their race or ethnicity.

Some political observers had predicted a rise in hate crimes following a Trump win, citing his controversial rhetoric and comparing his victory to the Brexit vote, which was followed by a 40 percent spike in hate crimes in the United Kingdom.