On this date in 2003, University of Virginia student and student council hopeful, Daisy Lundy, who is African American and Korean, was assaulted by a white male who used a racial slur at the time of the attack that left Ms. Lundy with a concussion and injuries to her leg. To our knowledge no one was arrested in this race-based attack.

In Santa Fe, New Mexico, on this date in 2005, two gay men, James Maestas, 21, and Joshua Stockham, 23, were attacked because of their sexual orientation by a group of six men who followed their victims after they left a Denny’s restaurant. Anti-gay slurs were hurled at Mr. Maestas and Mr. Stockham during the brutal attack that resulted in Mr. Maestas suffering a head-injury and falling into a coma for over a week. He injuries were so significant he was required to re-learn how to dress himself and how to walk. Isaia Medina, 20, and Gabriel Maturin, 21, aggravated battery causing great bodily harm, battery, and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery, and faced up to seven years in prison, but State District Judge Michael Vigil told the attackers at their sentencing, "You both would be ruined if I sent you to prison. I would be throwing you away. I don’t want to do that." Medina and Maturin were instead given each 90 days in the Santa Fe County Jail, house arrest for a year with weekends spent in jail, and ordered to perform 500 hours of community service. Three other attackers, including David Trinidad, 17, received three years of supervised probation and 500 hours of community service; a fourth attacker was ordered to participate in a program for sex offenders and then serve five years of probation.

In Redding, California, on this date in 2008, Brenda Wilson, 46, pleaded guilty to the crime of violation of civil rights with the threat of violence, a felony hate crime, in the November 1, 2007, attack of a 14-year-old black girl near the Redding Area Bus Authority terminal. Wilson and another 46-year-old woman, Frances Childs, are said to have yelled racial slurs at the girl and a companion prior to Wilson pushing the black girl to the ground. Childs pleaded guilty in December, 2007, to misdemeanor disturbing the peace; a civil rights violation charge and a public intoxication charge were both dismissed against her.