NATIONAL BRIEFING / WASHINGTON, D.C.
Citing recent killings in Arkansas, Kansas and the nation’s capital, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. said new hate-crime laws were needed to stop “violence masquerading as political activism.”
The attorney general’s call came as a civil rights coalition said there had been a surge in white supremacist activity since the economic downturn and the election of the first African American president.
Holder cited attacks that killed a young soldier in Little Rock, Ark., an abortion provider in Wichita, Kan., and a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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