January 15, 2000, Elmwood Park, New Jersey
After days of anti-gay taunts and threats a 16-year-old gay student at Memorial High School in Elmwood Park was beaten by a classmate. The teen's face was bruised and cut from being tackled and repeatedly punched in the face and body.

January 19, 2000, Columbus, Ohio
Scott Roberts, a gay man, told the Columbus Dispatch that he believes he and his partner of six years, Bill Camelin, were attacked because they are gay. Camelin was shot to death in the attack, and Roberts was wounded in the knee. Shortly after midnight, Roberts said, he and Camelin saw two men smile and signal to them in another car; so they followed them down a side street thinking they might be another gay couple. Once parked, the two suspects allegedly got out, asked what the men wanted and shot the two victims.

January 28, 2000, Boston, Massachusetts
A group of high school teenagers sexually assaulted and attacked a 16-year-old Boston High School student on the subway because she was holding hands with another young girl, a common custom from her native African country. Thinking the victim was a lesbian, the group began groping the girl, ripping her clothes and pointing at their own genitals, while shouting "Do you like this? Do you like this? Is this what you like?" When the girl resisted, officials said, a teenage boy who was with the group allegedly pulled a knife on the girl, held it to her throat and threatened to slash her if she didn't obey her attackers. The girl passed out from being beaten. Three high school students were arrested in the attack and charged with civil rights violations, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery and indecent assault and battery.

February 1, 2000, Tujunga, California
The shooting of an African-American man is being investigated as a hate crime. The man was walking outside his home with a relative when a sport utility vehicle pulled into the driveway in front of them, blocking their path. Two people stepped out of the vehicle, one shouted a racial epithet before shooting the victim in the face. Authorities said the attack was unprovoked.

February 4, 2000, Wayne County, Michigan
A jury convicted a 15-year-old boy of manslaughter for killing Alexander Charles, a 16-year-old schoolmate the previous May. Police reports reveal that the perpetrator told investigators that he was angry at Charles, possibly over an unwanted sexual advance.

February 6, 2000, Tuscon, Arizona
A 20-year-old gay University of Arizona student was sitting at a café when a man came up behind him and punched and stabbed him with large knife. Witnesses heard the perpetrator saying that he had "killed a f---ing faggot," "this is what gays deserve," and "let this be a warning to the gay community." The victim was treated at a local hospital and released. The attack spurred an anti-hate rally on campus a few days later drawing over 1,000 people.

March 1, 2000, Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania
A black man has been charged with a hate crime after going on a shooting rampage killing three white men and leaving two others critically wounded. Prior to the attack, he told a black woman that he wouldn't hurt her because he was "out to get all white people." The perpetrator was allegedly yelling racial epithets at white maintenance workers and shot only white men on his rampage, and authorities found anti-white and anti-Jewish writings in his home.

March 1, 2000, Salt Lake City, Utah
A case that has been used to highlight the need for strengthening Utah's hate crimes statute resulted in two defendants pleading guilty to misdemeanor assault charges and a third defendant pleading guilty earlier to simple assault and criminal mischief for his part in a 45-minute crime spree that began outside a gay bar last year in which two people were beaten and three others terrorized. "Are you a faggot?" one of the defendants yelled. "He is a faggot!" another replied as they chased the first victim to his car and pounded on his vehicle until the victim was able to escape to call the police. Later, the defendants yelled anti-gay slurs and threw beer bottles at another car that had two men in it. Forty-five minutes after the initial attack, two of the defendants waited outside the gay bar and beat two men who had just exited the bar. One defendant told the arresting officer that they were "just out for a good time."

March 22, 2000, Dix Hills, New York TBC Tribute & Memorial to Steen Fenrich click here.
A distraught father committed suicide after the New York Police Department told him that they believed a skull and bones found in a plastic container in a park in Queens belonged to his stepson, Steen Fenrich, 19, who had been missing for six months. The teen's Social Security number and racial and anti-homosexual epithets were written on the skull with a marker. Fenrich was African-American.

April 1, 2000, San Diego, California
A man who randomly assaulted a woman on the street was sentenced under the state hate crime statute. The jury found that the perpetrator's hatred of women motivated him after he tackled a woman from behind and hit her head on the sidewalk.

April 25, 2000, Germantown, Maryland
A judge granted a protective order for a woman who was allegedly attacked by a man because of her sexual orientation. According to the victim, she and her partner and their 11-year-old daughter have been the victims of repeated anti-gay slurs and have had rocks and other items throw at their home because they are gay and some neighbors "want us out of the neighborhood." The incident in question occurred after a verbal altercation between the victim's child and the perpetrator's child, culminating in the victim's attack by the perpetrator. When police arrived on the scene, the victim was laying on the ground; her hand was bleeding; she had been kicked repeatedly in the head by the perpetrator and his 12-year-old son (while the son was allegedly yelling, "I'm going to kill you dyke b---h."); her face was swollen; she had footprints on her shirt; and marks on her neck and chest which required overnight hospitalization. Despite this, the police did not handle the incident as a hate crime and said that it was against their regulations to arrest the perpetrator because they had not witnessed the attack, thus forcing the woman to seek the aforementioned protective order to ensure her and her family's safety.

April 29, 2000, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Richard Scott Baumhammers, 34, a white man who resents non-Europeans, was charged with murder and hate crimes in a shooting rampage targeting minorities that left five dead and one critically wounded. The first victim was a Jewish neighbor, Anita Gordon, who was shot a half-dozen times before her house was set on fire. From there, the perpetrator allegedly went from shopping mall to shopping mall shooting and killing two Asian Americans, Thao Quoc Pham and Ji-Ye Sun at a Chinese restaurant; an African American, Garry Lee, at a karate school; and a man from India, Anil Thakurt, who was killed at an Indian grocery. Also shot at the Indian grocery was Sandeep Patel who was in critical condition. Two synagogues in Baumhammers' path were also shot up, and the word "Jew" and two swastikas were painted in red on one of the buildings. According to press reports, Baumhammers' attorney is mounting an insanity defense.

May 1, 2000, Jacksonville, Florida
Two of five men accused in the beating death of a mentally retarded man went on trial in what is being called a racially motivated killing. Altogether, five African-American men, ages 17 to 22, have been charged with beating and stomping Gregory Griffith, 50, to death in the August incident. The group allegedly had planned to attack the first white man who walked down the street. A witness testified that he saw fists flying and a white man backing out of a crowd, swinging and ducking before falling to the ground and being kicked in the midriff and head. Griffith died 13 days later from blunt head trauma.

May 14, 2000, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Aaron Figueroa, 20, who said he hated black people was found guilty of attempted first-degree murder for shooting a Stephen Arnold, 14, in the back on Martin Luther King Jr. Day more than two years ago. According to court records, the perpetrator purchased a rifle and a box of shells from a gun shop two hours before the shooting and returned them less than an hour after the shooting, minus one bullet. The perpetrator allegedly bragged to at least two friends that "he shot a black kid." (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, May 14, 2000)

May 15, 2000, Suitland, Maryland
The second body of a male-to-female transgendered person to be murdered in the D.C. area in less than a month was found in the victim's apartment. Authorities do not believe the two slayings are linked but local activists fear the two slayings may be hate crimes. Both victims frequented a section of D.C. known as a gathering place for transgendered persons who solicit sex for money. The latest victim, Carlton Hunt, known as Carla Natasha Hunt, 35, was found shot to death in the foyer of her apartment. The first victim, Tyrone "Tyra" Henderson, 22, whose body was found in an alley in Northwest D.C. three weeks earlier had suffered severe blunt force trauma to the head. According to news reports, the murders are causing panic in the transgender community.

May 17, 2000, Holbrook, Massachusetts
A grand jury indicted a 17-year-old high school student on seven charges for attacking a fellow student he believed to be gay. For five months prior to the attack, the perpetrator allegedly harassed the victim. In the attack, which occurred in the school cafeteria, the perpetrator hit the victim five or six times in the head before knocking him to the floor. The attack left the victim with a punctured eardrum and internal bleeding.

May 23, 2000, Salt Lake City, Utah
Police are investigating whether a 19-year-old woman working for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance was beaten and robbed because her attackers presumed she was a lesbian. The woman was canvassing when a male attacker in his 20s -- one of two white men with shaved heads -- allegedly came running up behind her, punched her in the face, knocking her down. The woman said the suspect then kicked her in the face while he yelled "dyke" and "queer." Initially, police response was slow, and the incident was not being treated as a hate crime. After pressure from local activists, police have said they are investigating the case as a potential hate crime.

May 30, 2000, Salt Lake City, Utah
A man armed with a pellet gun stormed into a gym, fired off a couple of shots and purportedly made threatening comments to the gay people in the gym. A 23-year old man was arrested for assault and police are investigating the incident as a hate crime. The club's manager said the gym is a health and social club for gay and straight men. (Salt Lake City Tribune, May 30, 2000)

June 1, 2000, Baltimore, Maryland
Gary William Mick, 25, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, attempted murder and armed robbery after admitting that he murdered a gay man and tried to kill another because, he told police, he thought gay men were "evil." In the first attack, a New Jersey man was bludgeoned to death with a claw hammer at the Admiral Fell Inn in Fells Point. Mick met his second victim, a dentist, at a bar, had dinner with him and went home with him. He latter attacked him with a knife. The men struggled and the victim escaped. The perpetrator told police that a childhood incident caused him to hate homosexuals.

June 4, 2000, Rapid City, South Dakota
Press reports indicate that police are "baffled" by a series of eight inexplicable drowning deaths among mostly Native Americans along Rapid Creek that have occurred over the course of 14 months. While law enforcement initially thought that the severely intoxicated men were drowning by accident while they slept, local Native Americans are skeptical of law enforcement and believe that "Indians get a whole different kind of justice in South Dakota." According to the press, they believe an "Indian-hater" is waiting for the victims to become drunk and then dragging, rolling or pushing them into the water. These incidents come on the heels of a March 2000 report from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission that shows that racial tensions in the state are high and that American Indians in South Dakota have a dim view of how justice is meted out in the state.

June 10, 2000, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Participants in a gay pride parade were run down by a man in a minivan yelling obscenities. One victim was hit twice in the knees and thrown off the hood. The perpetrator tried to swerve into the crowd, which included small children, three times before police pulled him out of the vehicle and arrested him.

June 11, 2000, New York, New York
Police urged citizens to help capture those responsible for a suspected bias attack against Hasidic Jews on the Coney Island board walk. Four Hasidic men were stabbed in the attack after a confrontation with a group of Latino men. Police said anti-Semitic slurs were used during the attack. (Newsday, June 13, 2000)

June 11, 2000, New York, New York
Fifteen men, some carrying large water pistols squirted four women with water, then tore off their clothes and groped them in Central Park. After attacking two teens, the men set on a couple from France. They held the 29-year-old man while they stripped and fondled his 28-year-old wife. Later, they attacked an 18-year old woman from England. (USA Today, June 12, 2000)

June 12, 2000, Providence, Rhode Island
Ebony Thompson, a 21-year-old African-American senior at Brown University, reported that she had been the victim of a racial attack on campus. Three intoxicated white men physically attacked her and shouted racial slurs at her last year. "You're a quota. You don't belong here. You're only here because your parents have money," she recalled hearing one of the perpetrators say. She claims the school did little to prevent the intolerance. The incident was handled by the University police, according to Thompson, but no criminal charges were filed. (ABCNEWS.com, June 12, 2000)

June 15, Kokomo, Mississippi
Raynard Johnson, a 17-year-old black teenager was found hanging from a tree in his front yard. While police have continued to say the death was a suicide, family members and civil rights leaders suspect that Johnson was murdered because he had been dating white teenage girls. Relatives have said that the teen had been harassed by whites who did not approve of his dating white girls and that the belt used in the hanging did not belong to Johnson. The family also reported that on two nights before the death, Johnson had heard noises outside the home and had fired a gun into the air to scare away possible intruders. (Washington Post, June 28, 2000)

June 15, 2000, Denver, Colorado
First-degree murder charges were filed against Samuel Grauman, 21, who was accused of killing, Daniel O'Brien, 36, because O'Brien was gay. Grauman and another man were believed to have befriended gay men they thought would be easy robbery targets. (Associated Press, June 15, 2000)

June 16, 2000, Fenton, Missouri
A suburban St. Louis man pleaded guilty to assault after three black teens were chased by 15 young white men, taunted with racial epithets and threatened with death after arriving at a party on April 30. Three to five other suspects also could be charged, according to authorities. (Associated Press, June 16, 2000)

June 20, 2000, New York, New York
Amanda Milan, a 27-year-old transgendered woman died after her throat was slashed with a knife outside the Port Authority. Winesses say that a group of cab drivers cheered and applauded as the crime was committed and shouted transgenderphobic remarks. One of the perpetrators allegedly shouted phrases like "You're a man! and "I know that's a [slang for male genitalia] between your legs." Three men were arrested in connection with the murder and held without bail. The incident has not been classified as bias crime. (lgny.com news July 10, 2000)

July 2, 2000, San Diego, California
The body of an undocumented migrant worker was found in a ravine in northern San Diego County. Police indicated that the victim was approximately 25 years old and had been beaten in the head and dragged on his face along the roadway. A few days after the body was discovered a carload of neo-Nazi skinheads attacked four Mexican migrants, chased them, beat them and shot them with high-powered pellet guns. Two of the victims had to have the pellets surgically removed. Police have labeled the incident a hate crime. (La Voz de Aztlan, July 7, 2000, San Diego Union-Tribune, July 8, 2000)

July 4, 2000, Ocean Shores, Washington
A racially charged fight escalated into a fatal stabbing of Christopher Kinison, 20. Kinison allegedly approached two brothers, Minh Hong and his twin brother Hung Duc Hong and shouted "Gooks go home" and "White Supremacy." Kinison allegedly punched Hung in the face before being stabbed by Minh 22 ''times with a kitchen knife. The press reported that earlier that week, the victim had allegedly been present when one man approached a group of about a dozen Filipino-Americans, swore at them, punched the windows of their car and made references to "white power." (Associated Press, July 13, 2000)

July 4, 2000, Grant Town, West Virginia TBC Tribute * Memorial to "J.R." click here.
Arthur "J.R." Carl Warren Jr., 26, an openly gay African-American man was brutally murdered. ''Warren, whose body was found on the edge of his hometown was allegedly killed by two 17-year-old boys. Known to call Warren names considered racial epithets and anti-gay slurs, the boys allegedly beat him and repeatedly kicked him with steel-toed boots. They threw him in a car and drove across town, ignoring his pleas to be taken home, which they passed on the way to the gravel pullout where they savagely kicked him and then ultimately killed him by driving back and forth over him. Local law enforcement officials have refused to even consider the possibility that this was a hate crime. Neither current federal law nor West Virginia's hate crimes law include sexual orientation. The Justice Department has opened a preliminary investigation into the case. (Interviews with Warren family)

July 4, 2000, Casper, Wyoming
A man was arrested on charges of firing shots at a group of people watching a July 4th fireworks display in what police described as a hate crime. Johnny Lee Hodge, who is white, was being held on $100,000 bond after allegedly firing a shotgun at least three times at several black men and pointing the gun at the head of a teenage Indian girl, authorities said. Hodge made racial slurs before shooting at the group. (Associated Press, July 6, 2000)

July 11, 2000, Brooklyn, New York
Police were searching for a large man, usually clad in black who had been slashing and beating men in a park known as a gay hangout. Four victims had been attacked over a course of two weeks with either a baseball bat or knife. One victim heard his attacker yell, "I'm going to kill you." Another suffered slash wounds to his neck, hands, head and arms. The incidents are being investigated as possible hate crimes. (New York Post, July 11, 2000)

July 16, 2000, San Diego, California
Seven teenage boys, aged 14 to 17, who were arrested for attacking five elderly Latino migrant workers will be tried as adults. In addition to hate crimes, charges also include assault, robbery and elder abuse. The seven were accused of chasing, beating and shooting migrants living in a makeshift encampment in an isolated canyon. Ethnic slurs were used during the attack. (Los Angeles Times, July 19, 2000)

July 25, 2000, Seymour, Indiana
Two men face attempted murder charges in a possible hate crime against a 22-year-old Hispanic man. The victim, who was left with severe head injuries, was struck in the head with a baseball bat and beaten and robbed. (The Tribune, July 25, 200)

July 25, 2000, Barron, Wisconsin
Raymond C. Welton, 33, was charged with a hate crime in the murder Michael Hatch, a 22-year-old hearing-impaired, disabled man on October 20. Prosecutors contend that Hatch was robbed and beaten to death with a tire iron in part because his assailants thought he was gay. Three perpetrators allegedly lured Hatch from a bar because one of them had gone to school with him and thought he was gay. They allegedly shouted "hatred for gay people" during the beating. (Associated Press, July 25, 2000, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Aug. 20, 2000)

July 29, 2000, Mahwah, New Jersey
A man who allegedly attacked two men after calling them gay was arrested and charged with aggravated assault, bias harassment and bias assault. Witnesses told police that the alleged perpetrator, William Courain, 26, was at an apartment complex party when he began making obscene remarks to several of the guests about their sexual orientation. He left the party and confronted two men in the parking lot, calling them gay and making obscene comments before attacking them. Witnesses say he began punching and kicking the two victims, one of whom suffered bleeding from the mouth and eyes and was treated at a local hospital. (The Record, Aug. 1, 2000)

August 8, 2000, Providence, Rhode Island
Police are investigating an alleged gay bashing attack in which two young men said they were severely beaten and kicked by two strangers. The two victims were walking down a street when a car slowed and passed them. Minutes later the car drove by again, and the occupants allegedly began shouting vulgarities, anti-gay slurs and said "We're going to kill you." The victims yelled back; the perpetrators allegedly got out of the car, shouted more anti-gay slurs and vulgarities, threw a beer can at them and then proceeded to beat and punch the victims in the head and body until one of them almost lost consciousness. The perpetrators eventually got in their car and fled, and witnesses called for help. (Providence Journal, Aug. 11, 2000)

August 9, 2000, Daly City, California
Police charged four men with a hate crime for allegedly assaulting two gay men in a fast food restaurant. (Washington Blade citing San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 25, 2000)

August 10, 2000, Chicago, Illinois
A suspected serial rapist, Mark Anthony Lewis, was charged with three sexual assaults on Asian females, including a 15-year-old Vietnamese girl. Lewis was ordered held without bond for in those rapes and a series of five other home invasions. Hate crimes charges were also being considered. According to press reports, he is accused of "terrorizing the Asian community in a series of attacks between April 7 and June 19." Eight victims have identified Lewis as the alleged attacker. (Chicago Sun-Times, Aug. 10, 2000)

August 11, 2000, New York, New York
A 17-year-old who announced to his parents he was gay earlier this year was recovering after his parents severely beat him. Police say that Hendrick Paterson, 49, and Sharon Paterson, 36, allegedly repeatedly smashed their son with a lead pipe at a relative's home as they yelled anti-gay slurs. "God will punish you for your lifestyle!" "You can't be gay," the couple are quoted as saying. The son was rushed to the hospital where he was treated and released for multiple welts to his body. The couple was arrested by the NYPD hate crimes unit. It is unclear how they will be charged. The attack was apparently the culmination of a simmering six-month feud between the boy and his parents, who were so outraged by his sexual orientation that they kicked him out of the house. He went to live with an aunt, a few miles away, where the attack occurred. (New York Daily News, Aug. 13, 2000)

August 16, 2000, Cohoes, New York
A former honors graduate and high school football star received a 12-year prison sentence for killing a gay man last year after they reportedly had a sexual encounter. Albany County prosecutors said David Linen, 21, fatally beat Robert Carpenter, 43, after engaging in sex with him. (Washington Blade citing Albany Times Union, Aug. 25, 2000)

August 18, 2000, Washington, D.C.
A group of boys shot through the front window of a well-known lesbian bar on Capitol Hill, known as Phase I. Though witnesses had identified a gang of young boys as the perpetrators, they escaped without being apprehended or questioned because police response was slow. The bar manager had to call several times, and after finally arriving, the police were reluctant to take a report. Three years ago a canister of tear gas was tossed into a gay bar two blocks from Phase 1, and police had classified that incident as a hate crime. (Letter from Bar Manager, Aug. 19, 2000)

August 19, 2000, San Francisco, California
Two men were arrested on charges of stalking, assaulting and robbing men in gay bars in what police say was "brazen, bicoastal crime spree that included four robberies in Maine and vicious attacks on gays," including slashing one victim's throat, in California. The perpetrators were arrested after a bouncer at a gay bar recognized their distinctive Boston accents after reading about them in warning flier distributed by police. (The Boston Globe, Aug. 23, 2000)

August 23, 2000, Allentown, Pennsylvania
Two men face assault charges after police initially issued summary disorderly conduct citations for grabbing, kicking and biting another man. Because the two perpetrators also allegedly used anti-gay epithets during the attack, the victim complained to police and to a local gay activist group that they were initially only given citations. (Allentown Morning Call, Sept. 8, 2000)

August 24, 2000, Allentown, Pennsylvania
A 24-year old fatally shot a 15-year-old youth attending a party in his home after the teen touched him on the arm and other partygoers suggested the teen was gay. According to the Allentown Morning Call, a witness said that the alleged perpetrator, Michael Gambler, retrieved a shot gun and shot Kevin Kleppinger in the forehead. Friends say that Kleppinger was not gay and had been rubbing the perpetrator's arm because he thought he had accidentally spit on it. Other teens in the apartment began teasing the victim that he might be gay before the perpetrator shot him. (Washington Blade, Sept. 15, 2000)

August 25, 2000, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
A jury convicted Quincy Powell of second-degree murder for the beating and stomping death of Michael Fleming, 38, a gay man in June 1999, according to the Baton Rouge Advocate. Prosecutors said that Powell killed the victim because he was gay and subsequently referred to the victim as "faggot Mike" when he recounted the murder. (Washington Blade, Sept. 8, 2000)

August 25, 2000, Palm Springs, California
A judge ordered a U.S. Marine, Lance Horton, to pay $4,300 to a gay couple he admitted beating and to complete charity work as part of his five-year probation, according to the Desert Sun. Horton pled guilty to two counts of assault and to two hate crimes as part of a plea agreement that involved no prison time. (Washington Blade, Sept. 8, 2000)

August 26, 2000, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Close to 100 tombstones bearing Stars of David or Hebrew inscriptions in Rose Hill Memorial park were desecrated. Two men were apprehended, and the incident is being investigated as a hate crime. Families of one of the alleged perpetrators claim that he is not a racist despite the flaming swastika and "white power" slogan tattooed on his body. One of the alleged perpetrators had also been previously accused of harassing a gay couple for six months, including painting anti-gay messages on their house, shooting at them with a paint ball gun and shouting death threats. (Tulsa World, Aug. 26, 2000)

August 27, 2000, Illinois
Police are investigating an off-campus beating of an Illinois State University student as a possible gay-related hate crime. Christopher Weninger, who is not gay, was walking home from a party when three men approached him and one asked him for a cigarette. As Weninger handed the man a cigarette, another man punched him in the face and called him "queer." The men then ran away. Weninger suffered a broken nose and eye socket. The victim was apparently wearing a shiny rayon shirt that is popular among some gay men in the area. (Washington Blade, Sept. 8, 2000)

September 7, 2000, Los Angeles, California
A woman was charged with murder and hate crimes for allegedly killing a 65-year-old Hispanic man, Jesus Plascensia, by running over him at least twice in a parking lot. Authorities say the perpetrator made comments about her hatred of Hispanics after the death and referred to the victim as "dead road kill."

September 8, 2000, Alexandria, Virginia
A federal grand jury is investigating whether the April 19 slaying of 8-year-old Kevin Shifflett ''was racially motivated or a violation of federal civil rights laws. Shifflet was stabbed as he played with other children in the front yard of a relative's home in the Del Ray neighborhood of this D.C. suburb. A handwritten note found in a motel room where the suspect, who is black, stayed two days before the stabbing referred to killing "them racist white kids." Another child who had been playing with Shifflet, who was white, told police that he heard the assailant say something about "hating white people." (Washington Post, Sept. 8, 2000)

September 17, 2000, Farmingville, New York
Two Mexican day laborers were brutally beaten and stabbed by two white men who lured them with a promise of work to an abandoned warehouse in a desolate industrial park. The day laborers were standing on the street corner waiting for a possibility of work when the two men picked them up. On the way to the graffiti-ridden warehouse, one man asked the workers if whether they were Mexican. That is when the attack began. Later, the workers were led to a basement in the back of the warehouse where the attack continued. Police have little doubt that the attack was a hate crime and the perpetrators had carefully planned to murder their victims. (Newsday, Sept. 19, 2000)

September 19, 2000, Cambridge, Massachusetts
A Muslim student, who was wearing a prayer cap was returning to his dorm from Islamic prayer when he was attacked by two white men with shaved heads. The men grabbed the student from behind and punched and kicked him. One of the perpetrators allegedly used a racial epithet during the beating. The victim required medical attention and received stitches for a wound in his head. (Boston Herald, Sept. 25, 2000)

September 11, 2000, Roanoke, Virginia TBC Tribute & Memorial to Danny Overstreet click here.
Ronald Edward Gay, 53, allegedly walked into the Backstreet Café and opened fire on patrons, killing one person and wounding six others. Gay told police that he shot seven people in a gay bar because he was angry about jokes people made about his last name. Gay has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Danny Lee Overstreet. Police have said that Gay admits shooting people "to get rid of, in his term, 'faggots.' He told us people made fun of his name. He told us that he was upset about that." (Washington Post, Sept. 24, 25, 2000) Also see, TBC Honors Roanoke 7, organization established to help the victims families and people of Roanoke heal and acceptance of diversity with-in the community click here.

September 23, 2000, New York, New York
A Korean immigrant, Jong Lee, died after being attacked on the front porch of his building. Two attackers, identified as young men, their heads wrapped in bandanas and one clutching a 10-pound cobblestone, viciously attacked him for no apparent reason breaking his arm and fracturing his skull in the process. Police are focusing on the possibility that Lee may have been killed by gang members as an initiation rite. The attack happened three weeks after a similar bashing-type murder of a Chinese restaurant owner, Jin-Sheng Liu. Liu was murdered on September 1 when a group of five teens ordered take-out to an abandoned home and ambushed him. (New York Daily News, Oct.1, 2000)