The League of Iowa
Human & Civil Rights Agencies

SF police probe more hate crime BB-gun shootings

By Terry Collins, Associated Press Writer

Published March 12, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO -- Prosecutors who have charged three cousins with a hate crime for shooting a San Francisco man with a BB gun because they thought he was gay said Friday they're considering charging the suspe...

In Jury Selection for Hate Crime, a Struggle to Find Tolerance

By Manny Fernandez, New York Times

Published: March 8, 2010

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — Over the last several days, Justice Robert W. Doyle has heard the typical excuses from potential jurors. One woman mentioned her husband’s medical problems. Another woman complained about her back.

But other prospective jurors, seeking to be excused, have bro...

The police at the University of California, San Diego, are investigating the discovery Monday night of what appeared to be a Ku Klux Klan-style hood on a statue outside the main campus library. The hood, “crudely fashioned” from a pillowcase, a university statement said, was found along with a rose placed in the statue’s fingers. The campus has been shaken by racial incidents in the past two weeks that have led to student protests and promises by administrators to improve th...

Two white suspects cleared in the death of a black man who was allegedly dragged beneath a vehicle are suing the Texas officials who kept them jailed for more than eight months. The federal lawsuit filed this week seeks at least $4 million for Shannon Finley and Ryan Crostley, once the main suspects in the 2008 death of their friend, Brandon McClelland.

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The Lucero de America Foundation has its origins in the community mourning and outrage that followed the ambush and death of an unarmed Ecuadorean immigrant, Marcelo Lucero, in Patchogue in November 2008. The seven Patchogue-Medford High School students accused of baiting, beating and dealing a fatal knife blow to Mr. Lucero are on trial, but unease among the immigrant population persists.

The leader of the Justice Department's civil rights unit has decried a recent spate of hate-crime cases across the United States and pledged to make prosecuting violent "equal-opportunity bigots" a top priority in the coming year. The remarks of Thomas E. Perez, who took over the Civil Rights Division about two months ago, came on the same day as federal prosecutors in Roanoke won a criminal conviction against William A. White, a leader of the neo-Nazi group American National Socialist Worker...

Two teenagers have pleaded not guilty in federal court to a hate crime in the death of an illegal immigrant from Mexico. The two — Brandon Piekarsky, 18, and Derrick Donchak, 19 — were arraigned in Wilkes-Barre on charges stemming from the July 2008 beating death of the immigrant, Luís Ramírez, 25, in Shenandoah. They were denied bail. A jury previously acquitted them of the most serious state charges in the case. Gov. Edward G. Rendell asked the Justice Department to pu...

Done in by his own words, Internet hatemonger William A. White was convicted Friday of threatening people from Virginia Beach to Canada. The verdict, however, was not a total repudiation of White's assertion that the First Amendment should protect his incendiary speech. Of seven counts against White, the federal jury acquitted him of three. White, who will be sentenced later, could face up to 35 years in prison. The self-proclaimed leader of a Roanoke-based neo-Nazi group, White was returned ...

WASHINGTON — Two days after the Justice Department announced federal indictments related to the fatal beating of a Mexican immigrant in Shenandoah, Pa., federal authorities said the charges were part of a larger effort to step up civil rights enforcement after nearly eight years of decreased hate crime prosecutions. Thomas E. Perez, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said the department brought more federal hate crime cases this year than in any other year sin...

Washington (CNN) -- Five people, including three police officers, have been indicted in the fatal race-related beating of a Latino man in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, the Justice Department said Tuesday. Two indictments charge the five with federal hate crime charges, as well as obstruction of justice and conspiracy, authorities said in a written statement. A federal grand jury handed up the indictments last week, and they were unsealed Tuesday. Derrick Donchak and Brandon Piekarsky are charged ...