PHOTO:Michael McGarrity, FBI Assistant Director of the Counterterrorism Division, testifies during a House subcommittee hearing on confronting white supremacy and the federal response, June 4, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.In May, the head of the FBI's counterterrorism division, assistant director Michael McGarrity said officials were investigating nearly 850 people across the United States as possible domestic terrorists and the number of cases targeting white supremacists, white nationalists and other racially motivated extremists have increased this year.
“In fact, there have been more arrests and deaths in the United States caused by domestic terrorists than international terrorists in recent years,” he said.
Anti-transgender incidents also registered for 157 of the 1,404 reported hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation, according to the FBI's report.
(MORE: Transgender woman's murder underscores problem of partner violence plaguing community, advocates say) Victims include 20-year-old Londonn Moore, a black transgendered woman who was murdered in Florida in September 2018. Moore's murder marked the "20th known killing of a transgender or gender expansive person in 2018," according to the Human Rights Campaign.
Anti-Semitic incidents counted for the 896 out of the 1,550 regional incidents.
"While any reduction is welcome, the level of hate crimes around the country are unacceptably high," John Cohen, a former DHS Undersecretary and ABC News contributor, said.
Cohen said that the "charged" political rhetoric in public discourse is matriculating into acts of violence.
A quarter of the incidents took place in or near residences or homes and 18.7% of the indents occurred on highways, roads, alleys, streets and sidewalks.
"The reporting between 2017 and 2018 is essentially the same. However, people report hate crimes when they believe something will be done about them," Michael Stern a former federal prosecutor told ABC News in an email.
By comparison, the 2016 Hate Crime statistics had 6,121 incidents.
ABC News' Mike Levine contributed to this report
Kaynak:Abcnews