The U.S. Department of Justices’s Civil Rights Division focuses on anti-Jewish hate crimes in the lead article to the new May 2014, Volume 60, issue of “Religious Freedom in Focus. The following excerpt from the new issue presents the Department’s view of anti-Semitic hate crime: Three Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes Prosecuted in April in Texas, Utah and New Mexico Anti-Jewish hate crimes remain the most reported religious-based hate crimes in the United States, representing 674 out of a total of 1,099 religious hate crimes recorded for 2012 in the FBI Hate Crime Reports. In April, public attention was focused on anti-Jewish hate crimes as a result of the April 13 shooting in Kansas City, during which two people were killed at the Jewish Community of Greater Kansas City in Overland Park and one person was killed at a Jewish retirement community nearby. The accused shooter is being prosecuted by Kansas authorities with the assistance of the FBI. We have seen such anti-Jewish shootings before, such as the shooting at the Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles in 1999, which resulted in the wounding of three children and two adults and the murder of a postal worker in the aftermath, and the shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. in 2009, which left a security guard dead. Both cases were prosecuted by the Department of Justice. In addition to such shooting cases, the Department also regularly prosecutes a variety of cases of anti-Jewish hate crimes and other hate crimes against religious groups and individuals. In April alone, the Department prosecuted three anti-Jewish cases: Houston, Texas: Dante Phearse pleaded guilty on April 28 to violating the Church Arson Prevention Act, 18 U.S.C. § 247, by making a bomb threat to Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. In addition to punishing acts of arson and the use of explosive devices against places of worship, Section 247 makes it a crime to use violence or the threat of violence to interfere with the free exercise of religious beliefs. Sentencing is set for July 7. Salt Lake City, Utah: Macon Openshaw pleaded guilty on April 16 to violating 18 U.S.C. § 247 for firing three shots from his .22 caliber handgun at the Congregation Kol Ami synagogue in Salt Lake City. Openshaw admitted that in 2012 he shot at the synagogue because of its religious character. Under the plea, he agreed to be sentenced to 60 months incarceration. Sentencing is scheduled for July 15, 2014. Albuquerque, New Mexico: John W. Ng was indicted on April 24 under 18 U.S.C. § 245 for threatening and interfering with the federal rights of the owner of a Jewish restaurant in two separate incidents by leaving threatening notes on the door of her restaurant. An indictment only establishes probable cause, and Ng is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Read more here.