Locally, police investigated two incidents of backlash in the week following Sept. 11. One involved "ethnic profanity" scrawled on the exterior of a city package store owned by a man of Pakistani descent.

In the other incident, which eventually resulted in an arrest, a man reportedly walked into a Subway restaurant and used a racial epithet to describe the owner of the business, who does not have a Middle Eastern background. The suspect then threatened to blow the restaurant up.

The suspect was arrested nine days later after a police officer who had viewed a surveillance photo of the incident in Subway recognized him at a candlelight vigil on Memorial Boulevard in honor of Sept. 11. Sachok was charged with second-degree hate-based bigotry or bias, threatening and breach of peace. His case is still pending in Bristol Superior Court.

In October, police were alerted by water department employees that two men who appeared to be of Middle Eastern backgrounds were taking photographs near the filtration plant on Terryville Avenue. Police contacted the FBI, but a subsequent investigation showed the two men were sightseeing in the area and were photographing the golf course and foliage near the plant.

The most recent event involving hate crime occurred in March during a night-long vandalism spree comprised of spray-painted epithets on homes, vehicles, a church and a school, including references to Osama bin Laden and Sept. 11.

The three vandalism suspects were each charged with numerous charges in connection with the incident, including second-degree intimidation based on bigotry or bias.

Bristol Superior Court Judge Christina Dunnell expressed outrage at the vandalism and especially the references to the terrorist attacks.

"It is just so unbelievably sickening that anybody could be doing this and, as far as writing anything related to Sept. 11, to me that borders on treason," Dunnell said during the suspects' arraignment.

The suspects are scheduled to appear in court in October when they are expected to receive up to three years in prison in connection with the crime.

Police Chief John DiVenere, who expressed surprise last fall at the two backlash incidents involving business owners, said there have been no similar incidents since then.