[caption id="" align="alignright" width="200" caption="Hudson Islamic Center, site of an alleged hate crime this past center, as seen in an image from a Times Union story about the incidence."][/caption]A year-end report on the state's hate crimes, which went up this past year according to Greene County native Sean Byrne, Acting commissioner for the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, showed two such cases investigated in Columbia County for the past year and not convicted, plus three investigated, with two arrests, in Greene County. In the Hudson Valley/Catskills region, there were 70 reported cases, which are almost double the 38 incidents reported in 2008. Westchester County reported the greatest number of incidents at 23, with five arrests last year; followed by Rockland County with 16 incidents and 12 arrests; Orange County with nine incidents and six arrests; Dutchess with eight incidents and no arrests; Ulster with five incidents and four arrests; Sullivan with four incidents and three arrests; and Putnam having one incident with two arrests. Hudson Police Department investigated two incidents that were initially labeled hate crimes in 2010: a May 3 arrest with charges of third-degree assault (hate crime), an E felony, for an attack on a 29-year-old man in the Seventh Street Park in Hudson allegedly due to the man’s sexual orientation and the arrest of three men for allegedly spray-painting racist graffiti on the outside of the Hudson Islamic Center that goes to trial in May 2011.

Details of the Greene County crimes were not available as of press time.

Statewide, the most prevalent hate crimes, at 37 percent, were anti-Jewish, following by 21 percent being anti-black, 12 percent being anti-male homosexual, and six percent being anti-Hispanic.

For the Register Star's account, click here.
For Mid Hudson News Network's, try here.