In Seattle, Washington on this date in 2000, the Northwest Coalition for Human Dignity, an anti-hate group watch group started by Father Bill Wassmuth in 1989, reported a staggering 52 white supremacist hate groups in Washington (17), Oregon (13), Idaho (11), Montana (5), Colorado (3), and Wyoming (3). This figure arrived at by the local group exceeds by 17 hate groups the number of such groups in those states as reported by Montgomery, Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, a well-respected organization known for monitoring and fighting active hate groups.

On this date in 2002 in a federal courtroom in Montana six members the Montana Front Working Class Skinheads were sentenced to federal prison for committing several hate crimes for attacking an African-American man, a Hispanic woman, and a Hispanic man in Pioneer Park in Billings, Montana on July 29, 2000. The Department of Justice press release reported that Sean Allen, 27, Eric Adam Dixon, 21, Thomas Edelman, 19, Michael Flom, 24, Ryan Flaherty, 23, Jeremiah Johnson, Jason Potter, 26, and Jeremiah C. Skidmore, 22, chased the victims out of the park while yelling racial slurs and threatening the victims with clubs, chains, bats and metal bars. Potter was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, Allen and Dixon were sentenced to ten years in prison each, Skidmore was handed a 100-month prison sentence, Flom was given a 41-month prison term, and Flaherty received a 37-month prison sentence. Edelman and Johnson, who cooperated with the prosecution and who pleaded Guilty to charges of conspiracy and attacks on minorities were sentenced to 34 months in prison each on March 1, 2002. Jeremiah Skidmore is to complete his prison sentence on May 7, 2010, Sean Allen is to complete his sentence on May 10, 2010, Eric Dixon is to complete his sentence on October 22, 2010, and Jason Potter is to complete his sentence on December 12, 2014. Thomas Edelman finished serving his sentence on March 7, 2008, Ryan Flaherty completed his sentence on December 26, 2006, Michael Flom completed his sentence on June 1, 2005, and Jeremiah Johnson completed his prison sentence also.

On this date in 2003 Ernest Henry Avants was convicted of aiding and abetting a premeditated murder in connection with the 1966 killing of Ben Chester White, an elderly African-American sharecropper in Mississippi because of his race, a case that was opened by the federal government in 1999. Avants, Claude Fuller and James Jones, lured Mr. White to Pretty Creek Bridge in the Mississippi Homochitto National Forest where he was shot multiple times with an automatic weapon, shot in the head with a single barrel shotgun, and thrown from a bridge into Pretty Creek. By murdering Mr. White, the three had attempted to lure Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the area to kill him. Avants was aquitted and Jones had a mistrial for the race-motivated murder of Mr. White in courts in Mississippi. Fuller, who was never prosecuted by federal or state officials, died. Avants died in a federal prison at the age of 74.

On this date in 2008 in Quincy, Massachusetts, Jeffrey R. O’Connor, 24, of Quincy and formerly of Weymouth, pulled a Quincy man out of a car, and then punched him repeatedly while yelling anti-gay slurs. The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office prosecuted O’Connor for the bias-motivated assault. O’Connor pleaded guilty in Quincy District Court in connection with the attack, and he was given probation and ordered to receive anger-management counseling. On July 3, 2009, Norfolk Superior Court Judge Thomas A. Connors, prohibited Jeffrey O’Connor, 25, from threatening, intimidating or coercing the victim or anyone else in Massachusetts on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation. A violation of the court-ordered injunction is a criminal offense punishable by up to a fine of $5,000 and two-and-a-half years in county jail, or if bodily injury results from such violation, a $10,000 fine and up to ten years in state prison. The injunction was sought by Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Office under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, better known as the hate crimes statute.