A California man accused of killing 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein and burying him in a shallow grave is allegedly a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi with ties to an armed fascist group, according to a report.

Samuel Woodward, 20, was arrested earlier this month on charges that he stabbed high school friend Bernstein at least 20 times and then buried him at a park near his parents’ Lake Forest Home.

(SANTA ANA, Calif.) — The parents of a 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania student killed and buried in a California park said Tuesday that the killing may have been a hate crime against their gay son.

The family statement came after a search warrant affidavit obtained by a newspaper revealed that Samuel Lincoln Woodward, 20, the high school friend arrested on suspicion of killing Blaze Bernstein, told investigators that Bernstein had kissed him and he had pushed him away before they went to the park.

Days after learning her husband, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, had been killed by a man who questioned his immigration status, Sunayana Dumala poured her pain out in a widely read Facebook post. She wrote about the love and light her husband had brought into the world and all the dreams they’d had about building a new life in the United States together. But there was a question pulsing underneath all these reflections, an existential anxiety about her place in America’s social fabric that she could not shake. So she ended the post with a question she believed was on every immigrant’s mind after the shooting: “DO WE BELONG HERE?”

BY NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

An alleged bigot who got a slap on the wrist after a Bronx hate-crime arrest is now accused of beating a transgender woman with a chair on Christmas Day.Kane Sekou, 40, attacked the 31-year-old victim in a Brooklyn homeless shelter, yelling anti-gay slurs as he struck her in the back, prosecutors said Wednesday. He was indicted on hate-crime assault charges.

By WSHV

A central Virginia man has been convicted of committing a hate crime against a co-worker.

James William Hill III, 36, of Chester, assaulted a co-worker at the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Chester in May 2015. Evidence showed that he did it because of the co-worker’s perceived sexual orientation and, afterward, he admitted to an Amazon manager and a Chesterfield County Police Officer that he dislikes people who are gay.

Source
Several students at a regional high school in Norfolk are being disciplined for harassing a classmate and the classmate’s mother in an incident the school’s superintendent described as a “hate crime.”

The students directed “inappropriate and racist slurs” at the victim, who was their sports teammate at King Philip Regional High School, King Philip Regional School District Superintendent Elizabeth Zielinski said in a statement posted to the school’s website.

Source:  NY Times

A white Cornell University student who was facing an assault charge for a September incident, in which he is said to have called a black student a racial slur and then punched him in the face, on Monday was also charged with a hate crime.

“This was something we knew was a possibility from the beginning,” Matthew Van Houten, the Tompkins County district attorney, said of the hate crime charge. “That kind of charge is not something you want to bring hastily; you have to carefully review all the evidence and take a deep breath. But when someone is selected based on their race or national origin or some other protected category, that’s what makes it a hate crime.”

Source: The Root

A fire at a Jordanian restaurant in Wichita, Kan., could now be investigated as a hate crime after graffiti was discovered in the back of the restaurant with the warning, “Go Back.”

Owners Ranya Taha and Bashar Mahanwe woke up to a phone call at 2:10 a.m. Wednesday alerting them to a two-alarm fire at their business, Petra Mediterranean Restaurant. As the Wichita Eagle reports, the fire gutted the restaurant, laying to waste a year of the family’s hard work.

Source: USA Today

A University of Hartford student faces a hate crime charge after she admitted to covertly harassing her black roommate, according to police.

Hartford Police are requesting that Brianna  R. Brochu, 18, be charged with intimidation based on bigotry or bias, after she bragged on social media about rubbing bodily fluids on her roommate’s backpack and tainting her toothbrush and food, the Hartford Courant reported.

Source: The Inquirer

The former chief of a small South Jersey police department was released from federal custody on $500,000 bail to await trial on bias and civil rights charges that have rocked his Bordentown Township community, though local civil rights officials said Thursday they had not received any complaints about him.

Source : The Telegraph

American rapper Lil B has been temporarily banned from Facebook after the social network ruled he violated its hate speech policies.

The 28-year-old received a 30-day ban from the social media platform after a post about white people and gun violence.

Source: The Herald

Almost a third of LGBTI Scots who have experienced hate crime have been the victim of at least 10 attacks, new research has revealed.

A survey of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and inter-sex people in Scotland found that three fifths (61%) considered themselves to have been a target of a hate crime at some point in their lives.

Source: The Detroid News

As hate crimes targeting Muslims and Jews rise across the United States, according to advocacy groups, the key to sparking change in Metro Detroit lies in forging ties and fighting back, activists said Tuesday.

“You’ve got to speak up,” said Farooq Kathwari, president/CEO of Ethan Allen Interiors and co-chair of the national Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council. “Silence is not a good option.”

Source: Huffpost

Source : The New York Times