From [HERE] A racially motivated beating in Minnesota, a racist slur painted on a Louisiana church, or the brutal assault of two teens and one man in New York that investigators say happened because of the victims' sexual orientation: all are cases which could now fall under federal jurisdiction because of the 2009 Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act. 

"Under that legislation which was a response to Matthew Shepard's tragic death, we developed the ability in the federal system to look at cases where an assault or an effort to hurt somebody with a weapon was motivated by their gender, their status of disability, their identity, or their sexual orientation," said Joyce Vance, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. "So, what that means in essence is you can have cases which, prior to the enactment of this law were state misdemeanors, now we can investigate those as federal felonies."

Critics of the term hate crime argue that many crimes involve hate, but the U.S. Attorney's Office says this statute draws an important line in the sand.  

"Sure, all crimes involve to some level- hate. The reason that we have statues like this is to ensure that people understand that this system is one that's based on equal protection for everyone in our society," said Joyce Vance, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.
"This is a fairly new statute as federal crimes go. It takes some period of time for people to understand their reach so we plan to aggressively work with state and local law enforcement so that they know these sorts of situations where in the past there was no reason to approach the federal government, now they can call the FBI. We hope to get that message out to the community that if you're a victim of a crime like this you should pick up the phone and call the FBI office," said Vance. "And later this year we plan to bring some training that's been put together on a national level to Northern Alabama to fully get the word out."