A sampling of hate crimes and hate group activities from the second quarter of 2015 is summarized in state-by-state listings.
Incidents of apparent hate crimes and hate group activities listed here are drawn primarily from media sources. These incidents include only a fraction of the almost 260,000 reported and unreported hate crimes that a 2012 Bureau of Justice Statistics report estimated occur annually. This listing carries a selection of incidents from May through August 2015. Any additional listings can be found on the Southern Poverty Law Centerโs website. splcenter.org/get-informed/hate-incidents
CALIFORNIA
Palo Alto ยท July 15, 2015
A group of white men allegedly stabbed a Latino teen with a screwdriver in a parking garage after making offensive remarks about his ethnicity.
Rialto ยท May 3, 2015
Jeremiah Bell, a 22-year-old black man, was charged with attempted murder and hate crime allegations after he allegedly beat a white man with a baseball bat.
Sacramento ยท June 27, 2015
Jose Alvarez Espinoza, 34, was charged with assault, making willful threats and attempted offense because of race, color or religion after he allegedly used a racial slur and assaulted a woman on the street.
Stanford ยท June 26, 2015
Lucas Joseph Ninow, 19, was charged with felony vandalism, misdemeanor vandalism and hate crime for allegedly spray-painting racist graffiti and swastikas on Stanford University student housing units.
COLORADO
Boulder ยท May 7, 2015
Jeffrey Klinkel, 32, was charged with felony menacing, explosive or biological hoax, and interference with an educational facility for allegedly sending envelopes with threatening messages and a white powder to a Jewish community center and synagogue in early April.
Boulder ยท May 13, 2015
Paul Wettengel, 45, was charged with third degree assault and bias-motivated crime for allegedly assaulting a 21-year-old transgender man.
FLORIDA
Miami Beach ยท June 6, 2015
A swastika and anti-Semitic message were scrawled on a car.
ILLINOIS
DuPage County ยท June 22, 2015
Karen Komar, 49, was charged with three felony hate crime counts and three misdemeanor counts of aggravated assault after she allegedly used racial slurs and pointed a weapon at three teenagers, two black and one white, on a sidewalk.
Plainfield ยท May 11, 2015
Andrew M. Machaj, 22, was charged with a hate crime and criminal damage to property for allegedly spray-painting a racial slur and swastika at the residence of several Western Illinois University students.
LOUISIANA
Clinton ยท July 25, 2015
Ronnie Barnes, 54, was charged with a hate crime and a misdemeanor after allegedly using a racial slur and questioning the gender of a 12-year-old boy.
MICHIGAN
Troy ยท May 1, 2015
James Duane Tree, 53, was charged with ethnic intimidation and assault and battery after allegedly using ethnic slurs and threatening to kill a Muslim man.
MISSISSIPPI
George County ยท June 2, 2015
Joshua Vallum, 28, was charged with murder for allegedly beating a transgender teen to death.
Jackson ยท May 8, 2015
Robert Henry Rice was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his involvement in a conspiracy in a string of assaults in 2011 that targeted black residents.
Moss Point ยท July 11, 2015
The letters โKKKโ and white power were spray-painted on city signs.
NEW YORK
Buffalo ยท May 5, 2015
A threatening note with racist insults was wrapped around a brick and thrown through a window of an interracial coupleโs residence.
Lake Luzerne ยท June 14, 2015
Scott D. Bills, 19, and Bradley S. Moulton, 21, were charged with second-degree menacing as a hate crime after allegedly firing a BB gun at two men and shouting anti-gay slurs.
Long Island ยท July 2, 2015
Elisa Pellino, 66, was charged with second degree aggravated harassment as a hate crime after allegedly leaving a racist telephone message at a church.
New York ยท May 5, 2015
A gay couple at a restaurant was allegedly assaulted by two men who used anti-gay slurs.
New York ยท June 1, 2015
Rolan Reid was charged with a hate crime for shoving a transgender woman onto subway tracks.
New York ยท June 19, 2015
A group of black men allegedly attacked a white man on the street while yelling racial slurs.
New York ยท July 11, 2015
Zin McDade, 29, allegedly punched a woman on the street while yelling anti-Muslim insults.
New York ยท Aug. 4, 2015
The first gay couple married at West Point was allegedly attacked by a man yelling anti-gay slurs.
NORTH CAROLINA
Charlotte ยท June 25, 2015
A predominantly African American church was set afire only weeks after nine worshippers at a historic Charleston African American church were shot and killed by white supremacist Dylann Roof.
OREGON
Portland ยท July 2, 2015
Jeremiah Mauer, 31, was sentenced to 13 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and second degree assault stemming from a 2014 incident in which he fired shots into a residence. Mauer was the founder of the United Aryan Empire, a white supremacist gang responsible for a number of fights and shootings last year.
SOUTH CAROLINA
Columbia ยท July 18, 2015
Members of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement held a pro-Confederate flag rally at the state capital. Earlier in the day, members of the New Black Panther Party demonstrated against the flag.
TENNESSEE
Memphis ยท May 7, 2015
A letter with a swastika on the envelope that threatened to blow up the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center was left in the centerโs mailbox.
WASHINGTON
Seattle ยท June 28, 2015
Three unrelated hate crimes targeting gay men and a transgender woman occurred hours apart on the same day hundreds of people attended the annual gay pride parade in downtown.
Seattle ยท July 7, 2015
Jeffrey Brooks Knothe, 57, was charged with malicious harassment after he allegedly used gay and racial slurs and spit on a gay couple and a black woman on a city bus.
Spokane ยท July 4, 2015
Anti-Muslim graffiti was spray-painted on the wall of a community center where Bosnia Herzegovina Heritage Association members were observing Ramadan.
WEST VIRGINIA
Huntington ยท May 6, 2015
Steward Butler, 23, was charged with civil rights violations and battery for allegedly attacking two gay men.