For the second time in a month, a Sikh-American was physically assaulted in a reported hate crime in New York City.

On July 30, a man in a pickup truck directed hate speech at 29-year-old Sandeep Singh before running him over and dragging his body with his vehicle. On Aug. 7, Jaspreet Singh Batra, a medical scientist who was walking with his mother, was attacked by a group of teenagers who shouted racial slurs while punching him in the face and the back of his neck.

Batra’s case bears a striking resemblance to last year’s incident involving Prabhjot Singh, a physician and professor at Columbia University who was chased down by a group of teens shouting “Get Osama!” and “Terrorist!” The attackers fractured Singh’s jaw and dislodged several of his teeth before dispersing.

Sikh Americans, easily identifiable by their uncut hair, turbans and beards, have been disproportionately targeted in hate violence since the 9/11 attacks. Nationwide, there have been more than 700 attacks and discrimination incidents against Sikhs since 9/11, according to the Sikh Coalition, the largest Sikh civil rights organization in the United States. This includes a brutal attack two years ago on a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, which took the lives of six worshippers.

Despite the national outrage after Oak Creek, Sikhs continue to be targeted in hate crimes. A 2009 report by the Sikh Coalition found that 41 percent of Sikhs in New York City have been called names such as “Osama bin Laden” or “terrorist” and that 9 percent of Sikh adults have been physically assaulted because of their religious identity. (By way of comparison, in 2012, when the national population just topped 300 million, the Federal Bureau of Investigation documented 6,000 hate crimes in the United States — a a rate of 0.002 percent.)

Police departments are too often part of the problem. For instance, the New York Police Department maintains a policy that effectively bars observant Sikhs — who follow the religious mandates of keeping a turban and uncut hair — from serving on its force. They may only serve if they hide their turbans under police hats, which Sikh traditions prohibit.

Of the 500,000 Sikhs living in the United States, tens of thousands call New York City home. The NYPD’s unwillingness to accommodate an important part of its community gives New Yorkers a green light to do the same — and perpetuates the very stereotypes that lead to hate crimes.