Just a few days before Christmas in 2004, a man was attacked outside of a Ballard restaurant. Before the assault, the attackers had asked the victim if he were gay. Though the victim replied that he was not gay, the assailants beat the man unconscious while they yelled, "This is still Ballard."

Ballard resident Ken Molsberry, who is gay, felt compelled to do something when he heard of the attack in his ostensibly safe neighborhood.

"The incident in Ballard shows that anyone can be a victim," said Molsberry. "It's not who you are necessarily, but who the attacker thinks you are."

It was "the lack of community response to this crime, not only during the assault, but afterwards," that Molsberry said inspired his report, "Bias Crimes and Incidents in Seattle: 2000 to 2005: An analysis by type of bias and neighborhood."

The report, released earlier this month, found that bias attacks are prevalent in all Seattle neighborhoods.

"The purpose of this study is to dispel the misconception that there is any neighborhood in Seattle in which bias attacks are not a problem," Molsberry wrote in the report.

Through records from the Seattle Police Department's bias-crime database, Molsberry categorized bias-motivated incidents by neighborhood from 2000 to 2005. More than 400 incidents were documented in all 18 Seattle neighborhoods. Some included verbal and physical threats. Many were incidents based on race, religion, sexual orientation and national origin.

The dominant motivator for bias attacks, according to Molsberry's report, was race (142 incidents) and sexual orientation (119 incidents). In Ballard there were three attacks based on race, and four were spurred by sexual orientation. In total, there were 15 bias-motivated attacks in Ballard in the four-year period.

The numbers for Ballard seem less shocking compared to other Seattle neighborhoods. The First Hill/Capitol Hill/Eastlake neighborhood had the most, with 20 attacks based on race and 43 on sexual orientation. There were 48 incidents reported in the Belltown/Downtown Seattle neighborhood.

But Molsberry said the number of incidents could actually be higher because many incidents go unreported for fear of reprisal or mistrust in government.

A recent incident in Ballard, when three white men attacked a 14-year-old African American boy on his way home from school, once again showed the community that Ballard is not immune to prejudice attacks. According to the police report, the attackers shouted racial slurs at the victim during the assault.

"Ballard should be aware that they are no more safe from bias attacks than in other neighborhoods," said Molsberry. "We have to get away from that false sense of security."

Molsberry also analyzed the number and types of bias incidents in Seattle 20 months before and after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The report shows an increase in most types of attacks after Sept. 11.

National origin attacks increased by 220 percent, from 10 to 32 incidents. Attacks based on sexual orientation rose 44 percent and on religion, 41 percent.

"What we see is a pretty clear indication that hate breeds hate," said Molsberry.

Sean Whitcomb with the Seattle Police Department said biased incidents are enough of a problem that the department has a dedicated bias crime unit and a detective exclusively charged with investigating those incidents.

"Quite often they go unreported," said Whitcomb. "We feel it's our mission that all of these crimes get reported and go through a thorough investigation."

But it's often hard for police to categorize an attack with a specific bias because one attack could be motivated by a combination of reasons. Less than 4 percent of the police records from the bias crime database had either no discernible bias focus or exhibited a combination of biases.

Whitcomb said Molsberry's findings could be "artificially inflated" because the system accounts for all reports of bias attacks that may or may not lead to criminal charges. But Whitcomb said the difference would not be significant.

Molsberry hopes his report will promote community awareness about an issue that many don't recognize as a problem.

"I think if people knew how frequently and how serious bias attacks are we would all want to do something about it," he said. "If you're not subject to the attacks then it's all too easy to ignore them."

Molsberry has been invited to present the report to the Seattle City Council Public Safety Committee and the Seattle Commission for Sexual Minorities. But a little attention will only go so far to address the problem of bias-crimes in Seattle, he said.

"The next step is to ask, 'What can we do now and who wants to help?'" he said. "We have to say that we won't tolerate hate, bias and prejudice in our communities."

Access Ken Molsberry's full report on bias crimes in Seattle at tinyurl.com/plj72.