As Wagatwe Wanjuki wrote earlier this month, “this is what fear looks like.” Citing deportation fears, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo revealed data showing that the number of Latinos reporting rape is down nearly 43 percent from last year:
"When you see this type of data, and what looks like the beginnings of people not reporting crime, we should all be concerned," Acevedo said during a news conference at HPD headquarters. "A person that rapes or violently attacks or robs an undocumented immigrant is somebody that is going to harm a natural born citizen or lawful resident."
Acevedo said he frequently talks with members of the Hispanic community about their growing fear of reporting crime. He said Houston's status as the most diverse city in the country prompted him to alert the public about the latest statistics gathered by his department.
This isn’t a case of rates going down in general, either. Non-Latinos are reporting rape and violent assault. More incidents, actually. Latinos, fearing falling onto the the radar of government officials and ICE, are not:
The police chief said the HPD analysis also showed an 8.2 percent increase of non-Hispanic victims reporting rapes and 11.7 percent increase of non-Hispanics telling police about violent crimes.
“Acevedo said based on conversations with other police chiefs and colleagues in other cities, the trend in Houston mirrors what is happening elsewhere.”
As Wanjuki noted, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck blamed an unshackled deportation force for a similar drop in reported sexual assaults in LA:
Since the beginning of 2017, reports of rape among the city’s Latino population have declined by 25 percent, compared to the same period last year. Domestic violence reports have dropped nearly 10 percent. According to statistics provided by the Los Angeles Police Department, no other ethnic group experienced a comparable decrease.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Beck said there was a “strong correlation” between the Trump administration’s new immigration rules, which empower federal agents to more aggressively deport those without documentation regardless of whether they’ve committed a serious crime, and the deflated numbers.
Chief Acevedo used the press conference to reassure fearful immigrant residents that his department’s goal is public safety, not to check papers. "We are not ICE agents and we are not interested in being ICE agents.”