MetroNews found from the Edmonton Police crime stats that anti-Queer hate crime in 2016 has already surpassed the entirety of incidents from 2015:

Attacks on LGBTQ residents have made up about 25 per cent of events investigated by the EPS Hate Crimes unit in 2016, compared to less than eight per cent last year, according to police.

Police told Metro Tuesday that nine of 38 occurrences forwarded to the Hate Crimes Unit this year have been directed toward LGBTQ people, and five were classified as crimes (the other four were “hate-motivated incidents”).

In all of 2015, police recorded just one hate-motivated crime and six hate-motivated incidents perpetrated against the LGBTQ community.

Now would be an excellent time to start confronting folks contributing to a culture of violence and ignorance.

-Shiv