January 19

On this date in 2002, Gregory Galvez, 71, died of smoke inhalation as he tried to escape from his high-rise apartment building in Lakeview (Cook County), Illinois.  A swastika, anti-Semitic messages and anti-gay messages were scrawled near the origin of the fire.  Both police and building residents claimed there had been numerous hate messages written in the building's elevator and numerous small fires in the building in the weeks leading up to the fire that led to Mr. Galvez's death.  Mr. Galvez lived on the ninth floor; his body was found on the fifth floor stairwell.

In Cooper City, Florida on this date in 2008, the campaign manager for Jewish mayor, Debby Eisinger, 49, had a swastika scratched onto her vehicle. Eisinger’s campaign manager, Lori Green, 44, who is also Jewish, said her car was parked beside her house in Embassy Lakes when the anti-Semitic act occurred. Green, whose husband's relatives are Holocaust survivors, reported the swastika when she discovered it, and the Broward Sheriff's Office have labeled the incident a hate crime.

In Bolingbrook, Illinois, on this date in 2009, an openly bisexual 15-year-old male from Romeoville, Illinois, was allegedly hit, choked and threatened with a knife by Phillip N. Jackson, 44, as the teenager was socializing with another teenager at the residence where Jackson was staying. Jackson, who is alleged to have made slurs about--and directed at--the teenaged victim's sexual orientation at the time of the attack, was arrested on suspicion of aggravated battery and committing a hate crime. Phillip Jackson's arraignment date is pending in Will County Circuit Court in Joliet.