California, USA: Last week in Fresno, California, a man pleaded no contest to a hate crime and was sentenced to 13 years in prison for brutally beating an 82-year-old man outside a Sikh Gurdwara Sahib in 2013.
According to local media, then-29-year-old Gilbert Garcia, Jr. encountered then-82-year-old Sikh American Bapu Piara Singh as Singh was leaving the Gurdwara Sahib in southwestern Fresno where he volunteered daily.
Garcia reportedly beat Bapu Piara Singh with a steel pipe while shouting anti-Muslim slurs. Piara Singh was in a coma for two days and hospitalized for a week with head wounds, broken ribs, and lung lacerations.
In February, Garcia agreed to plead no contest to a felony charge of inflicting injury on an elderly person and admitted to causing great bodily injury with a weapon. He also admitted it was a hate crime.
