Ole Hougen, 45, was convicted in April for confronting a 29-year-old Black man with racial slurs and slashing the man up to 20 times in the head and chest with a nine-inch knife while the man was trying to cross the street in Santa Cruz, according to the news release.
Prosecutors say Hougen was on probation at the time of the September 2020 attack. He pleaded no contest to state charges stemming from an attack in 2018 that involved a different Black man. This latest conviction is Hougen’s fourth known racially motivated attack against Black men in the last seven years, according to the news release.
Hougen’s case represents the first conviction and sentencing in the Northern District of California under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act that was enacted in 2009. Hougen was sentenced to 82 months in prison, and three years of post-released supervision.
The BIAS study — which reported common traits among nearly 1000 individuals charged and indicted for hate crime offenses — also found that just over 18% of the subjects analyzed were charged with, or convicted of, multiple hate crime offenses like Hougen.
Correction: This article has been updated with the correct time period for the data from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) report. That data revealed that during a 28-year period, hate crime attacks against Black people have remained over 40%
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