On this date in 1999 in Columbia, South Carolina, Clayton Spires Jr., 28, a then former member of the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was sentenced to 26½ years in prison for his role in wounding three Black teenagers outside the nightclub, Club Illusion in Pelion, South Carolina, in October, 1996, after he and co-conspirator, Joshua England, 20, had attended a Confederate flag rally. Spires denounced the Klan when he pleaded Guilty on December 21, 1998, in the U.S. District Court in Columbia, South Carolina, to violating the civil rights of three his victims—Hosea Brown, Dale Jones, and Gary Jones—and to using a semi-automatic rifle in the shootings, stating, "I wish people would stay out of this organization and put an end to it." England, who was also a member of the South Carolina Christian Knights of the KKK and who was 18 years of age at the time of the shooting, pleading Guilty to four felony counts on July 13, 1998, for shooting eleven times into a crowd of mostly Black teenagers outside the nightclub as Spires drove.

In Manitowoc, Wisconsin, on this date in 2006, arsonists burned the home of a biracial couple away on vacation in London, England, and racial slurs were spray-painted on two cars behind their 418 North 7th Street home. The house had to be razed, and the hate crime remains unsolved despite an $11,000 reward and the investigative efforts of the FBI and the Justice Department.

In Farmington, New Mexico on this date in 2008, Craig Yazzie, 37, of Dennehotso, Arizona, pleaded no contest to false imprisonment (a fourth-degree felony) and misdemeanor aggravated battery for his role in attacking a gay man, Matthew Shetima, in September, 2007. A hate crime enhancement charge against Yazzie was dropped as part of the plea agreement. He faces more than two years in prison.

In New York City, on this date in 2008, Stanislav Shmulevich, 24, of Brooklyn, pleaded Guilty to one count of disorderly conduct as part of a plea deal that allowed him to avoid going to trial on hate crime charges. Shmulevich, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, threw copies of the Qu’ran into a toilet on October 13, 2006, and November 21, 2006, after disputes with Muslims at Pace University where he was a business student at the time. Shmulevich, who was sentenced to complete 300 hours of community service, was initially charged with two counts of criminal mischief as a hate crime, a felony punishable by up to four years in prison.

In North Charleston, South Carolina, on this date in 2009, a Latino man from Mexico playing soccer with his 5-year-old daughter in their yard was shot to death in the Hawthorne City Mobile Home Park. Orlando Benitez Martinez was shot, then robbed allegedly by three African-American teenagers perhaps because of Mr. Martinez's ethnicity and immigration status. Arrested and charged with murder, armed robbery, and possession of a firearm were: Anthony Brown, 17; Marquise Summers, 18; and Marvin Rutledge, 19. Despite its appearance that Mr. Martinez was preyed upon because of his race/immigration status, the police did not classify the deadly attack on Mr. Martinez as a hate crime.