Unfinished Lives

Gay Man Savagely Beaten With Ball Bat in San Diego

Hillcrest, San Diego’s “safest” LGBTQ community, is site of brutal anti-gay attack.

San Diego, California – A gay man who was brutally beaten with a ball bat across the face in the Hillcrest Neighborhood of San Diego used to feel gay people were safe in San Diego.  No more.  Dwayne Wynn, walking along the sidewalk at midnight Monday was targeted for being gay by three men who pulled up behind him in a truck and ambushed him with a ball bat, crushing his eye socket and smashing his ribs.  10News.com interviewed a tearful Wynn in his home, still obviously shaken by his ordeal. Wynn told News10 that he heard an anti-gay slur shouted behind him, and then was struck full in the face with the bat.  “The last thing I see is a baseball bat being swapped right across the face,” he said.   “I was laying there,” said Wynn. “I was covered in blood and I could hear them literally high fiving each other as they’re walking to their truck.” It all happened so quickly that Wynn could not get an accurate description of the men who assaulted him or the vehicle they were driving.  “I thought I was dead,” he said, trembling from emotion. “I’ve never been that scared in my entire life. I literally thought I was going to die. I thought they were going to kill me. They were beating me that bad.”  

The spree nature of the attack in the heart of Hillcrest, the San Diego neighborhood noted for “tolerance and acceptance” sends a wake up call to the residents of the large, active LGBTQ community there, reminding them that diversity is not the same thing as equality.  “They just didn’t stop and they thought it was a game,” Wynn said, according to EDGE. “They thought it was fun.”

Unfinished Lives author, Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle, commented that major metropolitan LGBTQ communities have been lulled into a sense of complacency by recent news of marriage equality victories throughout the nation.  “Cities like San Diego pride themselves in diversity and tolerance,” Sprinkle said, “but that doesn’t mean queer folk are safe anywhere they live.  Just because you live in a bubble, you do not live in a culture that accepts and defends your right to exist and be secure from harm.”  Sprinkle, an LGBTQ hate crimes expert, noted that a prominent gay bookstore in Hillcrest was contacted to host a book signing and discussion on anti-LGBTQ hate crimes for the upcoming Martin Luther King Weekend, but the store management declined since the issue did not seem pressing.  “Now, with this gruesome crime in the heart of the ‘gayborhood,’ perhaps anti-gay hate crimes are a bit more real in San Diego,” Sprinkle observed.  “We are thankful complacency has not cost anyone his or her life there,” he said.

The Hillcrest neighborhood, just north of famous Balboa Park, hosts the largest civic celebration in San Diego each year, the Pride Festival, drawing thousands.  Dwayne Wynn used to feel safe and secure in his neighborhood.  Now, he and many others do not, due to a group of homophobic men who are still at large, hunting down gay men.

December 26, 2013 Posted by unfinishedlives | Anti-LGBT hate crime, California, Gang violence, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Hillcrest Neighborhood, LGBTQ, San Diego, Slurs and epithets, Unsolved LGBT Crimes | Anti-LGBT hate crime, Bludgeoning, California, gay bashing, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Hillcrest Neighborhood, LGBTQ, San Diego, Slurs and epithets, Unsolved anti-LGBT crimes | Comments Off on Gay Man Savagely Beaten With Ball Bat in San Diego