Hate Crimes

LINCOLN, Neb. -- Over 500 people gathered on the steps of the Nebraska State Capitol Sunday night to hold a vigil for a lesbian woman brutalized early Sunday morning in what local LGBT activists are calling a hate crime. [ Read more → ]

PORTLAND, Texas -- Texas Rangers and the Portland police department have released a new sketch of the suspected shooter in the June 22 attack that claimed one young woman's life and left her partner struggling to recover in a Texas neurological rehabilitation center. [ Read more → ]

SANTIAGO, Chile -- Chilean president Sebastian Pinera on Thursday signed an anti-discrimination measure into law that makes it a crime to commit acts of hatred against persons because of their sexual orientation. [ Read more → ]

ARLINGTON, Texas — Police in Arlington, Texas on Wednesday announced they have identified five suspects in connection with a crime spree earlier this month that included nearly a dozen incidents of anti-gay graffiti. [ Read more → ]

SANTIAGO, Chile -- The Chilean Congress this week approved an LGBT-inclusive anti-discrimination law, fast-tracked following the brutal attack and murder of Daniel Zamudio, a gay Chilean man killed earlier this year. [ Read more → ]

OAKLAND, Calif. -- A transgender woman was shot to death in downtown Oakland, Calif., over the weekend, and friend believe her killing was a hate crime. [ Read more → ]

NORMAL, Ill. -- An openly-gay Illinois State University student is recovering from several injuries he suffered from what he said was an anti-gay hate-inspired attack in front of his apartment near the Normal, Ill. campus early Saturday morning. [ Read more → ]

BOSTON -- A Tea Party rally in Boston on Sunday -- featuring guest speakers from two noted anti-gay hate groups -- drew a crowd of counter protesters from LGBT advocacy group Join the Impact Massachusetts and members of the Occupy movement, and led to arrests of at least three people. [ Read more → ]

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- The two Kentucky women connected to the beating of an openly gay Kentucky man have pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting a kidnapping and hate crime assault, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky. [ Read more → ]

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- A federal grand jury in London, Ky. on Thursday indicted two men in the first federal application of the Matthew Shepard-James C. Bryd hate crimes law since it was signed into law in October of 2009, according to an announcement by Kerry B. Harvey, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky. [ Read more → ]

WASHINGTON -- A 29-year-old gay man spoke to the Washington Blade on Tuesday through jaws wired shut to facilitate the healing of facial injuries brought about by a brutal beating that extended over several streets near his home in Columbia Heights on March 12. [ Read more → ]

SANTIAGO, Chile -- Daniel Zamudio-Vera, an openly gay Chilean man who spent 24 days in a medically-induced coma following a brutal attack March 3 by members of a suspected neo-Nazi group, has died. He was 24 years old. [ Read more → ]

D.C. police on Monday arrested a 27-year-old woman in connection with the March 11 shooting of a gay man at the International House of Pancakes restaurant in Columbia Heights that police listed as an anti-gay hate crime. [ Read more → ]

Today, less than seven percent of schools offer institutional support to LGBT students, such as an LGBT student center or programs director. Eighty-seven percent of schools fail to include sexual orientation in their non-discrimination policies. Protection for transgender people is even lower; only six percent of schools include gender identity in their non-discrimination statements. [ Read more → ]

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. -- A jury in New Jersey has found Rutgers student Dharun Ravi guilty of a hate crime against his gay roommate, Tyler Clementi, for using a web cam to spy on Clementi’s intimate encounters with another man. [ Read more → ]

DALLAS -- Two gay men were the victims of a brutal early morning attack on Tuesday and were beaten with baseball bats in what Dallas police are classifying as a hate crime. [ Read more → ]

WASHINGTON -- One gay man has been shot, and another gay man and a transgender woman were badly beaten in two separate attacks earlier this week in the Columbia Heights neighbood in central D.C. [ Read more → ]

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — A jury on Wednesday concluded their first day of deliberations on whether Dharun Ravi committed a hate crime when he used a webcam to spy on his college roommate's intimate encounter with another man, actions that allegedly contributed to the suicide of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi. [ Read more → ]

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Defense attorneys for Dharun Ravi, the former Rutgers University student accused of using a webcam to spy on his roommate's intimate encounter with another man, called seven character witnesses who testified Friday that they never heard Ravi say anything derogatory about gays or homosexuality in general. [ Read more → ]

SANTIAGO, Chile -- A brutal attack on a gay Chilean man over the past weekend has drawn sharp criticism over the lack of LGBT-inclusive hate crime laws in the South American country. [ Read more → ]