(Bloomberg) -- New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the city's police department has been “too slow” in designating and investigating incidents as a hate crime and that he hopes replacing the NYPD's hate crime unit head will add a sense of urgency to the issue.
The decision followed a number of high-profile incidents targeting members of the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders communities as well as an overall increase in hate crimes across the city. There were 524 hate crime complaints and 219 arrests in 2021, compared with 265 hate crime complaints and 93 arrests in 2020, according to NYPD data.
“We were too slow in investigating [crimes] as possible hate crimes,” Adams said during a press briefing Monday. “I wanted a new face there, a new vision.”
The head of Hate Crime Task Force, Inspector Jessica Corey was reassigned earlier this month. She now works in the firearms and tactics section, according to an NYPD spokesperson.
The NYPD said her replacement is Deputy Inspector Andrew Arias, who helped lead an investigation into NYPD arrests made during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
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