From the beginning, police have said they didn’t think the stabbing and beating of an American Indian man last March at a North Lawrence motel was a hate crime.

The victim, who gave an interview about the case for the first time Friday, disagrees.

“I think it was a hate crime,” said 22-year-old Josh Greemore, of Mayetta, who was attacked March 9, 2003. “I don’t see how it wasn’t.”

He said he thought one attacker’s reported claim of membership in a white-separatist gang should speak for itself.

Greemore’s remarks came after the last of five people convicted in his case was sent to prison. Douglas County District Judge Jack Murphy ordered Sara M. Bruce, 20, Osage City, to serve 45 months after finding she violated probation on her aggravated battery conviction by failing to complete a Labette County boot camp.

Murphy gave Bruce credit for 11 months served.

Police have said they believed the only motive in the crime was robbery. Greemore’s mother, Paula Hopkins, of Mayetta, said she initially had thought the attack was a hate crime but now agreed with police.

Greemore was in town visiting an acquaintance at Haskell Indian Nations University and staying at the Jayhawk Motel, 1004 N. Third St. The attack happened when he was drinking beer with a group of five people in a neighboring room.

One of the attackers, 25-year-old Jeremy S. Harris, of Guthrie, Okla., told police that he belonged to a white-separatist prison gang and believed people should stay with their own races, according to testimony. Harris referred to Greemore using an ethnic slur throughout the interview with police and also said that someone called Greemore an ethnic slur shortly before the attack, police testified.

But Harris also told police that another member of the group, 34-year-old transient Scott L. Staggs, suggested the attack by saying, “Let’s roll this guy.” Greemore was then beaten with a baseball bat and at least one unopened beer can, kicked, bound, stabbed and left in Riverfront Park.

In a 2002 case, then-Lawrence resident Jeffrey Medis was injured in a fight outside a downtown bar that he characterized as a hate crime because he’s gay. However, police said they didn’t believe sexual orientation had anything to do with the fight, and the man who struck Medis testified that he swung because he felt threatened.

Like Medis, Greemore says he does not remember the details of the attack.

Greemore, the oldest of five children, said he lost his sense of smell after the beating and couldn’t taste food very well. He’s angry more often than he was before, and he’s not as likely these days to go to the mall, play basketball or go out to night clubs.

“I used to be pretty friendly — outgoing and such,” he said. “I sit home quite a bit now.”

He’s not sure how he survived.

“Everyone says I was just hard-headed,” he said with a laugh.

Greemore’s attackers — a group that also included 23-year-old Leslie T. Howe, of Emporia, and 21-year-old transient James A. Keezer — are serving prison sentences ranging from two years for Howe to nearly 60 years for Staggs.