Hate crimes were down by more than eight per cent in 2015 but Toronto police say they did observe an uptick in incidents targeting the Muslim community that coincided with the arrival of Syrian refugees in the city.

According to a report that was considered by the Toronto Police Services Board today, there were 134 incidents that were categorized as hate crimes in 2015, which represents an 8.2 per cent drop from 2014.

The report, however, says that police “noted an increase” in hate crimes targeting the Muslim community, specifically during the month of November when the first of 25,000 Syrian refugees began landing in Canada.

“This trend may be attributed to negative backlash following the attacks in Paris, France and the government’s refugee resettlement plan,” the report states.

Arrests down

The most common hate crimes in 2015 were mischief to property, assault and criminal harassment.

The report says that the Jewish community was the most victimized group when it came to mischief to property while the LGBTQ community was the most victimized when it came to assault occurrences and the Muslim community was the most victimized in terms of criminal harassment occurrences.

In terms of arrests, the report said that police were able to take a suspect into custody in 19 of the 134 incidents in 2015.

The report attributed the low arrest rate to the challenge to investigating crimes that often taken place “without the victim or any witnesses present.”

Toronto police have been releasing an annual report on hate crime statistics since 1993.

Report on taser use released

In addition to the report on hate crime statistics, members of the Toronto Police Service also considered a report on the use of conducted energy weapons on Thursday.

That report revealed that conducted energy weapons were deployed 303 times in 2015, though they were only fired in 97 of those cases. The report also revealed that more than a quarter of all cases where conducted energy weapons were deployed involved an emotionally-disturbed person.

Speaking with board members on Thursday, Mayor John Tory said that connection is “concerning.”

“The police service must support mental health initiatives and examine these stats involving suspects in crisis,” he said.

According to the report, 87 per cent of those targeted with conducted energy weapons in 2015 were male, 35 per cent of whom were armed.

The youngest was a 15-year-old boy armed with a crowbar.