In Alexandria, Louisiana, on this date in 2008, Donald Washington, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, announced the arrest and indictment of Jeremiah Munsen, 18, a white man from Colfax, Louisiana, for his having allegedly driven past a group of black civil rights activists who had marched in protest over the arrests of the so-called Jena 6 with two nooses dangling from the back of his pickup on September 20, 2007, as the civil rights activists waited for a bus to drive them back home to Tennessee. The protest march drew national attention and 20,000 protesters to support six black students charged with beating a white student, Justin Barker, at Jena High School in Jena, Louisiana. The beating came months after three other white students were suspended, but not criminally charged, for hanging nooses in a tree at the school. Speaking about the Munsen arrest, Vanderbilt University political science and law professor Carol Swain said in a op-ed piece on January 27, 2008, titled “Al Sharpton Scores a Touchdown: The Indictment of Jeremiah Munsen and the Politics of Hate”: "Hate crime laws are designed to protect individuals from violence caused by intolerance of the person's race, religion or ethnicity." Wrong, law professor Swain. Hate crime laws are designed to protect everyone in society from the fear and the violence that is caused by hate-based violence or the threat of it, and to punish those who commit such crimes. Many hate crime laws also include age, sexual orientation, gender, and disability as protected categories, and a few include homelessness status. Munsen pleaded guilty. On August 15, 2008, Munsen was sentenced to four months in a federal prison.

In Boston, Massachusetts on this date in 2008, FBI agent Robert Sell, of Detroit, was arraigned in Boston Municipal Court on one count assault and battery, and the Boston Police also filed felony civil rights violations against Sell for allegedly telling his cab driver to go back to the country where he was from following a verbal altercation between the two outside Boston's Westin Hotel in Copley Square, that is said to have turned physical. The cab driver was also charged with assault and battery.

On this date in 2008 in Rochester, Minnesota, two white brothers, Nathan Sean Espenson, 21, of Dodge Center, Minnesota and previously of West Concord, Minnesota, and Brent Espsenson attacked a black man because of his race. Both brothers were charged with second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and fourth-degree assault, motivated by bias. Brent was unable to post bail; Nathan posted $100,000 conditional bail. However, on February 27, 2008, he was brought back into custody after apparently violating one condition of his bail: having no contact with the victim. Nathan is said to have gone to the victim’s apartment on February 27, 2008, and the judge subsequently increased Nathan's conditional bail by $50,000. Brent Espenson pleaded guilty to second-degree assault with a knife and gross misdemeanor fourth-degree assault motivated by bias (a hate crime) in June, 2008, and he was sentenced to four years in prison. In October, 2008, Nathan Espenson, 22, pleaded guilty to first-degree burlgary of an occupied dwelling and gross misdemeanor fourth-degree assault motivated by bias. On November 13, 2008, he was given a six-month jail term and 20 years probation for his crimes. A year before the hate crime attack, on January 4, 2007, Nathan Espenson—who at the age of 20 already had criminal convictions—jumped out of a car immediately before it was involved in a high-speed chase, that according to Rochester police, involved methamphetemine being thrown out the window of the car during the chase.

In Richmond, California in the early morning hours on this date in 2009, a black man, Brandon Manning, 24, of Pinole, was attacked allegedly by seven young white men who yelled racial slurs at him in a park in the 3500 block of Morningside Drive. The group picked up Mr. Manning, a UPS worker, at a gas station and promised him a ride home. Instead, they allegedly drove him to La Moine Valley View Park where they allegedly beat and kicked him in what police called a hate crime (the attackers allegedly called Mr. Manning a "coon" and asked during the brutal attack that left him with six broken bones, facial numbing, headaches and blurred vision, "How do you like this, you fucking nigger?"). Mr. Manning crawled to several nearby houses seeking help after his assailants fled. All seven suspects were arrested on January 31, 2009, when Richmond police served six search warrants in Pinole, Rodeo, El Sobrante and Richmond, California, and all were arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury. One of those arrested has confessed. On February 3, 2009, Steven Kinney, 18, of San Pablo, California, Andrew Word, 19, of Pinole, Victor Faria, 18, of El Sobrante, and Richard Lange, 20, of Pinole, were each charged with assault with a deadly weapon, felony battery, and a hate crime enhancement.