On this date in 2000 in an Orange County, California courtroom, Kevin Timothy Dale, 27, a skinhead from Orange, California, pleaded guilty to assaulting Mark Sanjay David, a man of East Indian descent, following a punk rock concert in Orange in 1995. Dale was one of 15 to 20 skinheads who attacked, beat and kicked Mr. David while shouting racial slurs at him in the parking lot at the location of the concert. On April 21, 2000, Dale was given a three-year, one-month federal prison sentence. He was released from prison on September 27, 2002, at the age of 30.

Law enforcement improvements and perseverance pay off. On this date in 2008 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, ArgusLeader.com reporter Matthew Gruchow reported 2006 FBI hate crime statistics for that city showing a dramatic increase over the 2005 figures. Gruchow cited "changes in reporting requirements and computer software at the police department provided more detailed data to the FBI for its 2006 crime reports" compared with 2005. In 2005 Sioux Falls had one reported hate crime, but in 2006 they had 28, and Gruchow reported that 2006 might have been the first year that Sioux Falls had an accurate report of hate crime incidents to the FBI due to the new system that was put in place in 2004, but took two years to function properly.

On this date in 2010 in Santa Ana, California, Firestone Complete Auto Care automobile mechanic Hector Manuel Medina, 32, of Santa Ana, doused a homeless man's possessions with gasoline and then set them on fire in an alley behind Medina's place of employment on South Main Street. The fire spread to the homeless victim, Ruben Sandoval, 64, who received second- and third-degree burns to his body, face, and hands. In a plea bargain agreement, Hector M. Medina pleaded guilty to one felony count of arson causing great bodily injury with a sentencing enhancement for arson with an accelerant. Over the objections of the Orange County District Attorney's Office, Medina was sentenced to five years in state prison on February 22, 2010 (the prosecutor wanted an eleven-year prison sentence). As of the date of Hector Medina's conviction, Mr. Sandoval continued to be hospitalized on a ventilator; he was unable to breathe independently as a result of the injuries he sustained at the hands of Medina as well as preexisting medical conditions.

On this date in 2010 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the body of a white homeless man, Robert Lee Merritt, 28, surfaced on the New River floating near the 300 block of Las Olas Boulevard. Mr. Merritt was allegedly murdered by another homeless man, Billy Tyner, 47, and his homicide was not prosecuted as a hate crime. Robert L. Merritt was thrown into the river on December 30, 2009, allegedly by Tyner who was charged with manslaughter. It is not uncommon for the homicides of homeless persons to not be prosecuted as hate crimes, especially when those charged are also homeless. In 2010 in Florida alone there were three such cases.

In Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on this date in 2011, an African-American couple, Frank and Sylvia Ellis, had their home and vehicle extensively damaged by a vandal or vandals who destroyed the couple's Dodge Durango's windshield wipers. In fact their SUV, which had some kind of oil in the gas tank, was considered completely destroyed. The perpetrator(s) also scratched the vehicle with sandpaper, and spray-painted a racial slur and obscene graffiti on the vehicle. The words and phrases "La Voca," "XVIII" and "Chicano Power," thought to be gang symbols, along with "Death to You" were spray-painted on the home along with a skull and crossbones. An estimated $23,000 in damage was done. On January 5, 2011, a white man, Darrell Nice, 49, of Cape Girardeau, was charged with two counts of felony first-degree property damage, one of them as a hate crime. After police searched Darrell Nice's home, they discovered a piece of sandpaper with paint on it in a pair of Nice's jeans, and his tennis shoes matched the footprints found around the Ellis' home, according to the probable-cause statement. The attack directed toward the Ellis' occurred after they called police about a loud party in another house nearby. Nice was freed on bond, and he was to be arraigned on January 25, 2011. In mid-April, 2011, Nice's case was transferred to nearby Perry County after Nice's defense attorney motioned for a change of judge. At that point he pleaded not guilty. However, according to an affidavit, Nice admitted to damaging the Ellis' vehicle but did not recall using spray paint on the Ellis' home or car. On September 16, 2011, in Perryville, Missouri, Darrell Nice had a pre-trial hearing.

While sitting in her car on North 24th Street and West Melvina Street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on this date in 2012, an African-American lesbian owner of the Licka-D-Splitz Bar and LGBT activist, Desiree Harrell, 43, was fatally shot eight times in what family members and the local LGBT community called a hate crime murder. A black man convicted previously of five crimes in Wisconsin, Raymond E. Baker, 35 (Date of Birth: August 12, 1976), of Milwaukee, was arrested on January 5, 2012, and he was charged with first-degree intentional homicide; he allegedly confessed to the slaying telling investigators he shot Ms. Harrell with his his .40-caliber glock pistol because he believed she was sexually involved with his wife. Although Baker brought two women with him to the police station to back up his claim, police said their stories did not match. Raymond Baker—who was convicted on August 16, 1993; April 12, 1995; December 13, 1996; October 13, 1999; and, most recently on September 7, 2011—faces life in prison if convicted.

In Hialeah, Florida on this date in 2012, a Hispanic white man, Luis Alberto Gonzalez, 50 (Date of Birth: May 11, 1961), of Hialeah, was shot in the head outside Jerry and Joe's Pizza on Palm Avenue near 48th Street. He had claimed to police that two African-American men (later identified as Andy Alexander Jr., 20, and Tarvis James, 21) had robbed him, then shot him in the head as he tried to flee in his truck. Gonzalez then crashed his pick-up truck into the Memorial Plan Funeral Home on Palm Avenue near 49th Street. Gonzalez, who was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Unit, was not seriously injured. Following a police investigation, police alleged that Luis Gonzalez yelled racial slurs at Mr. Alexander and Mr. James, who at the time were pedestrians, and told them to leave his city before allegedly revving the engine of his pickup truck and then accelerating it toward the two black men. It was then that Gonzalez was shot with a .25-caliber pistol apparently in self-defense. Eyewitnesses also reported that Gonzalez was not robbed. On January 10, 2012, Gonzalez was arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree attempted murder with prejudice with the classification of a hate crime and with filing a false report to police. If convicted, Luis A. Gonzalez could get up to 40 years in prison.

In Boonville, Indiana (Warrick County) on this date in 2012, a white man, Charles S. Decker, 63, of Boonville, allegedly threw a concrete block through the bedroom window of an African-American man, Keith Brimm, 48, with a note attached that was threatening and racist (it was signed "Your KKK family"). Decker was said to face misdemeanor charges of intimidation, criminal mischief and trespassing, but he was not arrested following his confession on January 8, 2012, to police (and later to the local media). Warrick County Prosecutors Office could file a hate crime charge against Charles Decker who said that Mr. Brimm owes him several thousand dollars.