Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman is scheduled to announce charges filed against people accused of committing hate crimes, standing alongside Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell and officials from Culver City and Redondo Beach. The announcement comes as the county continues to grapple with hate crime numbers that stayed near record levels through 2024. Officials say they'll use the event to detail both the new prosecutions and their broader efforts to combat hate-motivated violence across the region.
The timing lines up with sobering countywide data. As reported by NBC Los Angeles, Los Angeles County logged 1,355 hate crime incidents in 2024, a figure that dipped just 1% from the prior year but still ranks among the highest totals the county has recorded. According to the report cited by NBC Los Angeles, those crimes were motivated by race, ethnicity and national origin. The Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations' 2024 Hate Crime Report separately found that the 1,355 total victims represented the second-highest annual figure in 44 years of tracking, per the Los Angeles Times, just a hair below 2023's record peak of 1,367.
Which Communities Bore the Brunt
Breaking down who was targeted paints a stark picture. Anti-Black hate crimes hit an all-time high of 345 reported incidents in 2024, making up 51% of all racial hate crimes counted that year, according to the Long Beach Watchdog. The same report found anti-transgender incidents climbed to a record 102 cases, with 95% involving violence, while anti-Middle Eastern hate crimes jumped 118% over the same period.
Statewide numbers point in a similarly troubling direction. The California Department of Justice reported a 2.7% increase in hate crime events statewide, from 1,970 in 2023 to 2,023 in 2024, alongside an 8.9% rise in total hate crime offenses. Hochman himself has pointed to religious bias as a particular concern, telling JNS in July that his office will “move heaven and earth” to prosecute hate criminals, citing state findings that roughly 75% of religion-based hate crimes in California in 2025 targeted Jewish victims.
A Pledge Repeated at a West Hollywood Town Hall
Hochman made a similar commitment on LGBTQ+ protections during a July town hall in West Hollywood, where he pledged aggressive prosecution of anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes. The Beverly Press & Park Labrea News reported that Hochman referenced a March 2026 UCLA Williams Institute finding showing California anti-transgender hate crimes rose from 29 in 2019 to 73 in 2024; LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath also attended that event.
Under California Penal Code § 422.55, a hate crime is defined as any criminal act committed in whole or in part because of a victim's actual or perceived disability, gender, nationality, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or association with a protected group, according to FindLaw. Separately, Penal Code § 422.7 lets prosecutors elevate certain misdemeanor offenses into felony “wobbler” crimes carrying enhanced penalties when the offense was meant to intimidate or interfere with a victim's civil rights, per Justia Law, with sentencing enhancements potentially reaching state prison or county jail terms under Penal Code § 1170(h).
A Shift From the Prior Administration
Hochman's aggressive posture marks a deliberate pivot from his predecessor. Former LA County DA George Gascón initially eliminated most sentencing enhancements, including hate crime enhancements, when he took office in 2020, before reinstating them following widespread public and community concern, according to the Los Angeles Times. Hochman unseated Gascón in the 2024 election after campaigning on more traditional sentencing tools, a shift Hoodline covered in its report on his landslide DA win.
McDonnell brings his own institutional weight to the announcement. He was sworn in as the 59th chief of the Los Angeles Police Department in November 2024, following stints as Los Angeles County Sheriff and Long Beach Police Chief, according to the Los Angeles Police Protective League. His department's collaboration with municipal agencies in Culver City and Redondo Beach on this case reflects how regional law enforcement bodies often team up to build prosecutions under the state's hate crime statutes.
The Reports Are Only Part of the Picture
Even record-level police statistics likely understate how often Californians actually experience hate. The 2024 California Health Interview Survey found that 9% of Californians aged 12 and older, roughly 3.1 million residents, directly experienced an act of hate that year, up from 7% in 2023, according to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. Researchers found 55% of targeted individuals cited race or skin color as the primary motivation, and 83% of victims reported verbal abuse as the primary form the hate took, meaning most of these encounters never surface in the kind of criminal filings Hochman is expected to detail.
The announcement follows a string of hate crime cases Hoodline has tracked across the county in recent months, including a $20K reward tied to a vandalized Pasadena synagogue mural and a swastika-tagging arrest near Burbank. As with any criminal case, the charges Hochman plans to announce represent formal accusations rather than proven guilt, and the outcomes will play out in court in the months ahead.
