January 17

On this date in 1999 along a ditch in rural Texas City, Texas, police found the bodies of Laaron Morris, 28, and Kevin Tryals, 30, both of whom had been shot to death multiple times, and their car set on fire.  The families of both African-American victims said that the men were gay and that they believe their murders were a hate crime.  At the time their bodies had been discovered Texas City Police Chief Jerry Purdon said, "It was a very vicious murder so that it could have been a hate crime, but there is no evidence to link it to a hate crime." To our knowledge no arrests were made.

In Juneau, Wisconsin, on this date in 2004, Isaac D. Dornfeld, 20, allegedly started a barroom fight because two men at the Bullfeathers bar on Henry Street were speaking Spanish.  Dornfeld was charged with disorderly conduct as a hate crime, substantial battery and battery.

David V. Fredericy, 50, a white man from the Slavic Village section of Cleveland, Ohio, was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for his role in a racially-motivated hate crime towards an interracial family on this date in 2007. He pleaded guilty on October 26, 2006. Fredericy and a co-conspirator, Joseph Kuzlik, who is also a white man from the Slavic Village section of Cleveland, placed toxic mercury on the porch of the family to intimidate them to move out of the neighborhood. Kuzlik pleaded guilty to federal civil rights charges on November 27, 2006, and February 21, 2007, he was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution. Fredericy completed his prison sentence on June 17, 2008, and on February 7, 2008, Kuzlik completed his prison sentence at the age of 58.

In the Tarzana section of Los Angeles, California on this date in 2008, swastikas and anti-Semitic remarks spray-painted on four walls were found along Wells Drive, between Tampa Avenue and Louise Avenue. Police investigated the incident as a possible hate crime. To our knowledge no arrests were made.

On this date in 2009 in Gloucester City, New Jersey, self-proclaimed "white separatist" and Aryan Nation member, Christopher "Conan" DeMunguia, 35, of Gloucester City—a man who has spent most of his life behind bars and a man who in 2004 was jailed for the hate crime assault on a black man waiting at a bus stop—punched a man at Oh! Hara's Pub breaking his jaw. On January 12, 2010, DeMunguia pleaded guilty to aggravated assault under a plea agreement that will have him serve at least four years and three months before becoming eligible for parole.