Patty Dawson-Vasquez, a Native American mother who is Navajo/ San Carlos Apache attempted to seek help, fearing for her safety after a carload of probable racist skinheads tried to run her off the road. Ms. Dawson was pulled out of her car, beaten and kicked to the point of unconsciousness by the group in the car that included a white woman and two white men with swastika tattoos, according to eyewitnesses. Witnesses gave Clovis police the license plate number of the car that the attackers were driving that fled the scene. Ms. Dawson suffered a concussion, a broken nose, and other facial injuries and may have also suffered a broken rib in the unprovoked attack that left her traumatized and was unable to work for a long period of time.

After considered amount of pressure, Fresno County Sheriff finally arrested Jennifer Davette Fraser in September. She was charged with a felonious assault, defined as an attack on another individual in which the attacker uses a dangerous weapon and seeks to cause serious harm but stops short of an attempt to kill the victim. Her two male accomplices have not been identified, arrested nor charged. Three days after Dawson suffered the attack The Fresno Bee reported that three juveniles were arrested on felony vandalism and hate-crime charges after going on a graffiti rampage during which they tagged about 20 homes, cars and fences with swastikas and white-supremacy slogans.

The Justice for Patty Dawson Committee has learned that the owner of the vehicle has tattoos of the KKK on his back. The Southern Poverty Law Center web site lists four active white hate groups in Fresno County: listed are the California Skinheads, Holy Nation of Odin, The Creativity Alliance and Vinland Folk Resistance and for this very reason that this issue must be address immediately.

The Justice for Patty Dawson Committee demands that The US Department of Justice must work aggressively to prevent hate crimes, and when they occur, they must prosecute and punish the perpetrators to the full extent of the law. The Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division must launch an investigation into the horrible crime, which injured Patty Dawson and left her with a broken spirit and mind. We urge you to file federal hate crime charges against the assailants. It is imperative that the Department of Justice step in, send a strong message that hate crimes of any kind will not be tolerated in our great nation and the safety, protection and rights of all will be vigorously pursued by our federal government. Under federal law, a hate crime is defined as crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability or sexual orientation of any person against a person or property motivated by an offender. The Justice Department must send a strong message that violence targeting Native women or any ethnic or minority community member will not be tolerated and will be prosecuted to the full extend of the law.

We demand that the Fresno County District Attorney punish all the parties responsible for this crime, treat them like you would other gang members. Kidnapping charges should be added for pulling her out of her vehicle. They should be charged with assault with a deadly weapon for attempting to push her vehicle into incoming traffic. And above all the District Attorney should use the force of California Penal Code section 422.55, which defines a hate crime as a criminal act committed, in whole or in part, because of one or more of the following actual or perceived characteristics of the victim: (1) Disability, (2) Gender, (3) Nationality, (4) Race or ethnicity, (5) Religion, (6) Sexual orientation, (7).

We the undersign demand that the Fresno County District Attorney and the US Department Of Justice Civil Rights Division bring Justice to Patty Dawson.