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Washington pilots hate crime and bias hotline in three counties

Washington pilots hate crime and bias hotline in three counties
In 2027, Washington plans to expand its pilot hate-crime hotline statewide. File photo taken Aug. 11, 2019, in New Orleans. (Jenny Kane/AP Photo)
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Jake Goldstein-Street

A longer version of this article originally appeared in the Washington State Standard.

Washington has launched a hotline to report hate crimes and bias in three of the state’s biggest counties.

Residents in King, Spokane and Clark counties can now report hate crimes and bias incidents to the non-emergency hotline at 1-855-225-1010 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. This pilot will last 18 months, before Washington expands the hotline statewide in January 2027.

Staff can help callers find support services or assist in reporting incidents to local police. Anyone in the three counties can also report online. If experiencing an active emergency, residents should call 911, not the new hotline.

“Hate crimes not only directly harm individuals but also can instill harm throughout the community,” state Attorney General Nick Brown said in a statement. 

The Legislature created the hotline last year, with mostly Democratic support. 

Most years, Washington sees 500 to 600 hate-crime incidents reported to police, according to the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. This places Washington consistently in the top five states with the most reports. Hate crimes can be based on race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation or disability, among other protected classes.

Since 2019, legislators have made changes to the hate-crime statute, such as specifying the charge as a “crime against persons,” which makes perpetrators subject to supervised release after finishing their sentence. They also removed the requirement for “physical injury” to meet the hate-crime threshold. And they took out from the law the term “swastika” in recognition of religious communities that use the symbol Nazis appropriated.

Lawmakers also added property damage as a possible basis for a hate crime. And later this month, another law, passed this year, will take effect to clarify that bias need not be the only motivation to commit a hate crime. 

Washington’s state Republican Party called the new hotline a “snitch line” that would be “weaponized against those with viewpoint diversity.”

Beginning in July 2027, the attorney general’s office will publish annual reports on calls the hotline receives.

The Washington State Standard published a longer version of this article on July 8, 2025. Cascade PBS edited this article for length.

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By Jake Goldstein-Street

Jake Goldstein-Street is a writer at the Washington State Standard.