From [HERE] One tattoo was of a man wearing a Star of David being stabbed. Another was a face tattoo of a lightning bolt in the shape of the Nazi SS symbol. Another was an image of a woodpecker, a symbol that identifies the wearer as a "peckerwood'' or follower of white power. Three men adorned with these white supremacist tattoos were given prison sentences Monday for beating a black man at a downtown Houston bus stop in August 2011, the first conviction in Texas under a 2009 federal hate crime law.

However, authorities were adamant the Aug. 13 beating of Yondell Johnson at a bus stop at Travis and McKinney - only blocks from the federal courthouse - was a hate crime motivated by race. They said four men, who had stripped off their shirts to display their racist tattoos, made an unprovoked attack on the amateur boxer who had spent the day visiting his daughter. One of them used a racial slur in addressing Johnson.

During sentencing, two of the three defendants apologized to U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt but insisted their tattoos were the legacy of joining white supremacist gangs to survive as young men in tough Texas prisons.