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WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Eric Holder says recent violent attacks show the need for a tougher hate crimes law.

Holder, speaking Tuesday at a luncheon for civil rights lawyers, noted the recent killings of an abortion doctor in Kansas, a soldier in Little Rock, and a guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

He called the attacks brazen acts committed in once-unthinkable places, and said it is past time for Congress to strengthen hate crimes laws to prosecute violence based on gender, disability, or sexual orientation. He also said tougher laws are needed to deal with the increase in hate crimes against Latinos.

The attorney general said the United States must not tolerate murder cloaked in claims of political activism.