Hate crimes surge, led by attacks on Muslims.
The F.B.I. reported Monday that attacks against American Muslims rose last year, driving an increase of about 7 percent in hate crimes against all victims.
The data, the most comprehensive look at threat crimes nationwide, expanded on previous findings by researchers and outside monitors, who have noted an alarming rise in some types of hate crimes tied to the intense vitriol of the presidential campaign and the aftermath of terror attacks at home and abroad since 2015.
A wave of racially charged assaults, graffiti attacks and other episodes
has swept the country since Election Day, prompting Mr. Trump to call for a halt to it during a “60 Minutes” interview broadcast on Sunday night.
In its report Monday, the F.B.I. cataloged a total of 5,818 hate crimes in 2015 — a rise of nearly 340 over the year before — including assaults, bombings, threats and property destruction against minorities, women, gays and others.
Attacks against Muslim Americans saw the biggest surge: 257 reports of assaults, attacks on mosques and other types hate crimes against Muslims last year, a jump of about 67 percent over the year before. It was the highest total since 2001, when the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks saw more than 480 attacks.
Attacks against transgender people also sharply increased, the data showed.
Law enforcement officials acknowledge that the statistics give an incomplete picture because many local agencies still have a spotty record of reporting hate crimes, 26 years after Congress directed the Justice Department to begin collecting the data.
“We need to do a better job of tracking and reporting hate crime to fully understand what is happening in our communities and how to stop it,” James B. Comey Jr., the F.B.I. director, said Monday.
