February 6

On this date in 2006 in Ottumwa, Iowa, 17-year-old Matthew Lasman is alleged to have hung a dead opossum and a racially inflammatory note attached to it in a bathroom at Ottumwa High School. Lasman was arrested two days later, and Ottumwa Police Chief Jim Clark said the note left with the opossum qualified as a hate crime.

In Hudson, Florida, on this date in 2008, Paul F. Van-Riper, 48, a white man, was alleged to have encouraged his stepson to fight a black boy from his Duke Drive backyard while using a racial slur. The following day he was arrested and charged with a hate crime and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

In the Bridgeport neighborhood on Chicago's South Side on this date in 2009, someone torched the All Saints-St. Anthony Church on 28th Place and Wallace in an early morning hate crime attack. The perpetrator(s) used red duct tape to spell out an anti-religious message on the front doors of the church: "God is a lie. Rape happened here." A stained glass window was destroyed in the attack, but no one was injured.