Four years ago, a massive spike in anti-Asian violence around the country, amid the rise of the COVID pandemic, led to an outcry from Asian American communities — and renewed questions about racism and injustice.
The rise in both explicit hate crimes and seemingly random assaults on Asian Americans also led to a surge in advocacy, especially in San Francisco; arguably, it was the biggest factor in the 2022 ouster of former District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who was dogged by accusations of being soft on crime (despite evidence otherwise).
Three years later, a Gazetteer S.F. analysis of city data shows that the volume of attacks on Asian people in the city decreased significantly in 2024 from 2021. The number of hate crimes investigated by the San Francisco Police Department are also the lowest since 2018.
The trend follows similar decreases in other forms of crime around the city, which experts say is part of a natural regression to the pre-pandemic mean, rather than the result of any particular policy shift in policing and prosecution. Regardless of the cause, the downturn is good news for Asian American advocates — albeit with some caveats.
A review of the San Francisco Police Department’s quarterly reports on victim demographics shows the reported number of aggravated assaults, which are assaults that cause serious bodily harm or involve a weapon, dropped in 2024 after holding steady for three years.
While the dataset is incomplete — the SFPD has not released its report for the fourth quarter of 2024 — the figures paint a clear picture. Rates of aggravated assaults, battery, and investigated hate crimes against Asian people are all trending down, according to Gazetteer’s analysis.
The city averaged 465 reported aggravated assaults against an Asian victim annually from 2021 to 2023, with each year being almost identical in count. In contrast, there have only been 289 reports through three quarters of 2024; the city is on track for about 385 incidents in 2024.
Reports of Asian victims of battery, defined as unlawful physical contact, also fell in 2024 after increasing for three straight years. SFPD received a high 914 reports in 2023, but last year saw just 592 reports through three quarters.
Lastly, a review of SFPD’s investigated hate crimes over the last four years shows a major drop from a high of 60 incidents in 2021 to only five in 2024, aligning more closely with pre-pandemic levels.
San Francisco followed a national trend of decreasing hate crimes in 2024, which experts suggested was unusual because such crimes often increase sharply during election years. Data from researcher Brian Levin, a research analyst from the Crime and Justice Research Alliance, found a 2.7% decrease in hate crime reports in major U.S. cities; anti-Asian incidents, meanwhile, fell by 14%.
There are caveats to analyzing crime trends through statistics, especially given low sample sizes and the hazy nature of defining whether a perpetrator attacked an Asian person because of racial animus or by chance. Hate crimes in particular are also underreported because they are more challenging to prosecute than an aggravated assault or battery charge.
Carl Takei, program director of public safety for the Asian Law Caucus, was enthusiastic about a potential regression in anti-Asian incidents, but noted the chaotic political climate could still impact whether Asian victims report incidents to law enforcement.
“There are continued public safety fears, and in the context of that, it’s important that all of our community members can trust in their local institutions, and understand when you go to police or city agencies for help, that they won’t share your information with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and that it will not affect immigration status,” Takei said. “I think people are just very afraid right now because of the federal-level uncertainties.”
The advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate found that while reports of physical incidents decreased last year, the use of anti-Asian slurs and threats of violence increased, especially in online spaces. The trauma of violence during the peak pandemic years has also left lingering wounds on Asian American residents in the Bay Area, including elders who are seeing health impacts because of the stress.
Satsuki Ina, co-founder of the Japanese American political advocacy group Tsuru for Solidarity, questioned whether there is a real reduction of anti-Asian sentiment, whether expressed in assaults or simple rhetoric: “I’m walking around with a cane now, and more alert than ever. The trauma of the past few years doesn’t go away,” Ina said.
Healing from the past several years of escalating anti-Asian hate will take time, Ina said, and she praised the work of young Asian American organizers who are on the front lines to help victims and build grassroots support. A multi-racial coalition is also needed more than ever, Ina said, given sharp rhetoric from some Asian voices claiming that Black and brown people are primarily responsible for the attacks. (Research suggests otherwise.)
Such work has been a priority for the Chinese Progressive Association, said executive director Shaw San Liu. The group has expanded opportunities for “intergenerational dialogue,” including tours that bring Bayview residents to Chinatown and vice versa.
“It’s a much more three-dimensional and complex way to think about what’s happening, rather than what we see in social media and news reports, Liu said. “We want people in our community to develop their own understanding of what’s happened.”
