On this date in 2008, in Muncie, Indiana, a federal court judge sentenced Kyle Shroyer, 22, from Muncie, Indiana, to 15 months in prison and then three years on probation for his committing the hate crime of building and burning an eight-foot cross outside the home of a woman with three bi-racial children at their mobile home park in March, 2006. According to the U.S. Department of Justice's January 4th press release, Shroyer admitted in September 2007 that he and another man conspired to violate the civil rights of the woman and her three biracial by burning the cross. “Cross burning is a despicable act of hatred and intolerance that has no place in a free society,” said Grace Chung Becker, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The federal government will continue to vigorously prosecute hate crimes, and today’s sentence sends the message that those who commit criminal acts will pay a price.” The U.S. Department of Justice press release also reported: "The Department of Justice has compiled a significant record on criminal civil rights prosecutions in recent years. For example, in the last seven years, the Civil Rights Division brought 41 cross-burning prosecutions and convicted 60 defendants for these heinous crimes. And, in the last two fiscal years, the Division convicted record numbers of defendants for civil rights violations. In fiscal year 2007, the Division convicted 189 defendants, the highest number of defendants ever in the history of the Division, which surpassed the previous year’s record number of 181 defendants."

In Gilbert, Arizona on this date in 2008 an African-American man, James Tribble, 36, discovered vandals had spray-painted "Nigger" on his home in the Circle G Ranch subdivision of Gilbert. Mr. Tribble told the media that other minority families have been targeted in the neighborhood in the past. Police are investigating the vandalism as a hate crime.

On this date in 2008, in Chatfield, Minnesota, (in Fillmore and Olmsted counties) a black doll hanging by a noose at the Chosen Valley High School was discovered. Two students accused of the doll hanging were disciplined by the school, and school principal Randy Paulson said that one of the students disciplined in the case had, in the past, a poster supporting a white supremacist group displayed on their own locker. Chatfield Police Chief Shane Fox said that the incident has been referred to the Olmsted County Attorney’s office. The two-county area was in 2007 90.9% white and 3.3% African-American. Garrett Ray Ballinger, 17, of Chatfield, and a student at Chosen Valley High School, was charged with three felony counts of harassment/stalking committed out of bias as a result of the incident. Ballinger is scheduled to appear at the Olmsted District Juvenile Court July 14, 2008. DiversityInc has reported more than 40 noose-hanging incidents nationwide since October, 2006, which is almost three such incidents per month for a 15-month timeframe. From 2001 through 2006 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed more than 25 racial-harassment lawsuits in the workplace involving nooses.