Santa Cruz Man Gets Nearly 7 Years For Hate Crime In Knife Attack

SANTA CRUZ, CA — A Santa Cruz man was sentenced Thursday to six years and 10 months behind bars after he was convicted of a federal hate crime in a knife attack on a Black man.

Ole Hougen, 45, faced a maximum 10-year sentence on his conviction by a jury in April after being accused of confronting a then-29-year-old Black man crossing the street near San Lorenzo Boulevard and Broadway Street in Santa Cruz on an evening in July 2020.

Hougen wielded a 9-inch knife and slashed at the man's head, chest and stomach 10 to 20 times, according to police and a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California. The unidentified victim was able to fend off his attacker until police arrived.

As officers took Hougen into custody, he said he wanted a "white person to help" arrest him, police said. Hougen continued to direct racial epithets toward officers and jail staff as they booked him into jail, police said.

At the time of the attack, Hougen was on probation after pleading no contest to state charges that he committed a racially motivated assault on another Black man in 2018.

Hougen's conviction and sentencing were the first in the Northern District of California under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a federal law passed in 2009 to expand the government's ability to prosecute hate crimes, the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI said in a letter Thursday.

Bay City News contributed to this report