Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Hate Crime Convict Denied Parole For 5th Time, But May Be Out In A Year

Paul Broussard (l) and Jon Buice (r)

Huntsville, TX – A parole board in Huntsville, Texas has denied Jon Buice parole for the 5th time in connection with his role in the 1991 murder of gay Houston banker, Paul Broussard.  Buice was convicted in 1992 for stabbing Broussard several times outside the Houston gay nightclub Heaven and was sentenced to 45 years in prison. He has served 17 years of his sentence.  Fox 26 News has learned that the convicted killer may be granted parole in little more than a year from now.  Andy Kahan, a victims’ rights activist, told Fox 26 reporters that he could not remember any other case as serious as this one in which a prisoner has been denied parole only to be available for parole just one year later.  Broussard’s mother, Nancy Rodriguez, flew from Georgia to testify at the November parole board hearing for her son’s murderer.  In 2007, as she was about to attend Buice’s 3rd parole hearing, Rodriguez said to KPRC Local News 2 reporters,”I still miss my son terribly. I really do. I think about where would he be today. What would he have accomplished in his life?”   Rodriguez has tirelessly fought to keep Buice in prison for at least 27 full calendar years, one year’s imprisonment for each year of Paul’s short life.  In 1991, 10 males, including Buice, attacked Broussard and two other men as they left the Montrose area gay nightclub.  According to testimony at the 1992 trial, the teens who brutally beat and stabbed Broussard to death were under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Buice is the last person remaining in prison for the hate crime murder.  Buice has his advocates, too.  They point out that he has changed his life.  While in prison, he has earned several college degrees, and he has been what his boosters describe as “a model prisoner.”  Rodriguez is not impressed by their arguments.  “The issue is not what he’s become,” she said to the Houston press.  “It’s what he’s done to get here.”

December 17, 2009 Posted by | Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Beatings and battery, gay men, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, stabbings, Texas | , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

“Jane Doe” Lesbian Rape Hearing Set A Year After the Crime

Josue Gonzalez, suspect in "Jane Doe" Rape Case

Contra Costa County, California – According to The Bay Area Reporter, an out lesbian known only to the public as “Jane Doe” was brutally raped by four men who attacked her because of her sexual orientation.  The first preliminary hearing on the case is scheduled to be held in January 2010, over a year after the savage rape incident that nearly took her life.  On December 13, 2008 at about 9:30 p.m., “Jane,” 28 at the time of the attack according to an AP wire service report,  was sexually assaulted by the men who watched her get out of her car in Richmond’s Belding-Woods neighborhood.  They had noticed a rainbow pride sticker on the car window, which police allege aided them in targeting the lesbian.  They forced her back into her car after being disturbed by someone approaching the scene of the crime, and drove her seven blocks to another location near an apartment complex on Burbeck Avenue where she was repeatedly sexually assaulted and beaten with a blunt object.  During the assault, the rapists allegedly taunted her for being a lesbian.  They stole her wallet, dumped her naked on the street, and drove away in her car, which was later identified by a rainbow sticker on the windshield.  Wounded and bleeding, “Jane” crawled to one of the apartments, and found help from the residents, who called the Richmond police.  She was transported to the hospital where her injuries were treated, and evidence of the rapes was collected with a rape kit.  “Jane’s” car was located in Richmond the next day.  Four suspects were arrested two weeks later, Humberto Hernandez Salvador, 32; Josue Gonzalez, 22; Darrell Albert Hodges, 16; and Robert James Ortiz, 16.  Salvador, Gonzalez, and Hodges pleaded not guilty earlier this year to felony kidnapping, carjacking, forcible rape, and forcible oral copulation.  Ortiz will enter a plea on similar charges January 7, according to documents of the court.  Bail for Ortiz is $3.5 million, bail for Salvador is $2.2 million, and bail for Gonzalez and Hodges is $1.9 million.  The Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney, Danielle Douglas told BAR reporters that the victim, who is partnered and has an eight year old child, is “coping” the best she can.  “That’s really all I can say,” Douglas said. “She’s doing her best to try to move forward.”  Richmond Police spokesman Lieutenant Mark Gagan commented to the BAR on the brutality of the crime:  “What’s difficult in this case is the level of aggression that the suspects showed was so immediate and over the top I don’t think that there was anything that our victim could have done to avoid being victimized,” said Gagan. “From what I understand, it was an immediate, extremely aggressive attack without provocation and without really any warning.”  District Attorney Office spokespeople say that the complexity of this case makes it move so slowly through the court system.  Since serious jail time is involved for all the suspects if proven guilty, each one of them has secured separate counsel, and all the defense attorneys are asking for maximum time to prepare for the trials, which will probably be split among the defendants rather being done as a single trial for all four men.  “Jane Doe’s” legal counsel, Gloria Allred, who represented the mother of slain transgender woman Gwen Araujo, is not pressing the court dates, given the level of trauma her client sustained from the multiple rapes and the viciousness of the attack.  A preliminary hearing is set for early January 2010, a usual legal procedure in California law in rape cases.  If the preliminary hearing uncovers evidence enough for a trial in the case, then the wheels of justice will turn toward days in court for the four defendants and the victim of one of Richmond’s most brutal anti-LGBT hate crimes.

December 11, 2009 Posted by | Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Bludgeoning, California, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Lesbian women, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, rape, Slurs and epithets, transgender persons | , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on “Jane Doe” Lesbian Rape Hearing Set A Year After the Crime

Houston Cy-Fair Bus Driver Fired Over Gay Teen Beating

Houston, TX – The Cy-Fair Independent School District has fired a bus driver for offering a 16-year-old openly gay student no assistance when he told the driver a gang was on the bus waiting to beat him up.  After an investigation by school district officials, the as yet unnamed driver was released from employment for ignoring the pleas of Jayron Martin, a sophomore at Langham Creek High, who had been tipped off by a friend that a gang of boys were “going to beat the gayness out of him.”  KPRC Local 2 News reports that Langham Creek High School officials have acknowledged that the day of the beating, Martin asked school leaders and his bus driver for help and protection.  An assistant principal at the school is still under investigation, according to a school district spokeswoman.  “The review is not completed. Thus far, [the assistant principal’s] actions have not merited putting him on administrative leave. Included in the review of what happened that day are details that cannot be shared publicly because of federal law,” said Kelli Durham, on behalf of Cy-Fair ISD.  Young Martin has always contended that the school’s principals were more at fault than the bus driver, since they had a considerable amount of time to respond to his appeal for help while the bus driver had to make his decision on the spot.  “Because I told [the principals] first and I gave a written statement and they did nothing at all,” he said.  Martin’s nine tormentors who were also riding the same bus chased him down when Martin was let off at his neighborhood.  One of boys, himself 16 years of age, beat Martin with a metal pipe while the other eight cheered him on and spat expletives and slurs at their victim.  The harrowing ordeal only ended when a neighbor broke up the beating with a loaded and cocked shotgun.  The assailant and his accomplices ran away, leaving Martin cut, beaten, bruised, and concussed.  The 16-year-old attacker, whose name remains confidential since he is still a juvenile, has been charged with aggravated assault.  Martin’s mother contends that he should be charged with a hate crime.  LaKenya Martin said that though the experience was one of the most trying of his son’s life, and very well could have ended with much more than injuries, she suspects that the publicity the school district has faced from Texas and around the nation will generate change.  “It might take some time, but with all changes, that’s what happens, it takes time and I do think that everything is going to come to light and people will see this can’t continue,” she told reporters.

December 4, 2009 Posted by | African Americans, Beatings and battery, Bullying in schools, gay teens, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slurs and epithets, Texas | , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Houston Cy-Fair Bus Driver Fired Over Gay Teen Beating

Three St. Louis Gay Men “Lucky to Be Alive” After Hate Attack

Jacob Piwowarczyk shows facial wounds sustained in attack

St. Louis, Missouri – Local station News Channel 5, KSDK in St. Louis reports a possible hate crime attack against three gay men early Saturday morning that left them cut and bruised, but alive.  One of the three lucky survivors, Jacob Piwowarczyk said to reporters, “I have a soft tissue bruise on my elbow. I have six stitches in my eye and I have a mild concussion.”  The two other victims suffered a broken nose and a fractured cheekbone.  Piwowarczyk went on to describe the attack that took place outside a popular local nightclub, The Complex.  Four men who had just left an adjacent bar to The Complex jumped out of their car and confronted Piwowarczyk and his two friends as they crossed the parking area. “They came up out of the car and they start calling us ‘Faggots,'” Piwowarczyk said, showing the press the injuries he sustained in the attack.  “We kept telling them please leave us alone, we’re fine,” young Piwowarczyk continued. “From there, the one kid didn’t like what we told them and decided to punch me in the eye and I fell to the ground. And at that time my friend was laying on the ground and they started kicking him in the face.”  Club security were the first to respond, probably averting much worse injury to the three gay men.  Then, police arrived at the scene.  The attackers had fled, reportedly in a black SUV with Illinois plates.  Missouri was one of the first states in the Union to include sexual orientation and gender identity protections for its citizens in 1999, according to Vital Voice, the leading LGBT newspaper in St. Louis.  Authorities are searching for the suspects, and have yet to determine whether the attack qualifies as a hate crime under the Missouri statute or the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, recently enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Obama.  If determined to be a hate crime, the suspects could face severe penalties.  The outcome could have been much worse, according to Piwowarczyk.  “Health-wise we’re all fine,” he said. “We’re just lucky to be alive.”

November 30, 2009 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Beatings and battery, gay men, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Legislation, Matthew Shepard Act, Missouri, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slurs and epithets, Stomping and Kicking Violence, Unsolved LGBT Crimes | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Three St. Louis Gay Men “Lucky to Be Alive” After Hate Attack

Houston Gay Teen Beaten with Metal Pipe Appealed for Help, But in Vain

Houston, TX – Jayron Martin, a 16-year-old freshman at Langham Creek High School, knew that school bullies were coming for him on Thursday, November 12, but his appeals for help to principals and to his bus driver fell on deaf ears.  Hours before the beating that left him with multiple bruises and a concussion, Martin says he was tipped off that classmates intended to ambush and beat him for being gay.  According to statements he made to KHOU-TV 11 News, Martin said that he immediately went to two school principals for help.  Instead of offering him help, they told him to write out a statement, and they would call him in after reading and considering his fears.  He wrote out a statement and took it to the principals, but no help of any kind was forthcoming, and the clock was ticking toward the impending attack.  “They didn’t do anything,” said Martin. “They never called me down [to the principal’s office] or nothing.”  No school official lifted a finger to help him or stop the approaching violence.  The principals did not even inform his mother.  Martin boarded the bus for home, knowing that the gang who promised to beat him up were riding it as well.  “All they kept saying was, ‘We going to get you. We going to fight you,’ and all that and so when they started coming after me they were like, ‘You’re not going to be gay anymore.’”  Martin said that he begged his bus driver for help, but the driver ignored the gay youth’s pleas.  The attack came off campus, when Martin got off the bus.  Nine boys got off at the same stop, and chased after Martin, who ran for his life to a neighbor’s house.  “You don’t understand, I was just running for my life and nobody was like there at all. Nobody was doing anything for me,” said Martin.  The bullies caught up to him at the neighbor’s house, and a seven-minute attack with a metal pipe commenced as Martin says he screamed for help.  As a 16-year-old thrashed him repeatedly, the eight others stood around, witnessing the beating and egging it on.  “They just kept hitting me,” he said.  Finally his neighbor heard the commotion, saw what was taking place in his yard, and came at the assailants with a shotgun.  He probably saved Martin from more serious injury or death.  The youth recalled that his neighbor shouted, “Y’all need to stop! Y’all need to stop!’ And the boy wouldn’t stop and he just kept hitting me and hitting me and so he cocked his gun and that’s when he ran out [of the yard],” Martin told KHOU reporters.  Harris County law officers arrested the 16-year-old who allegedly carried out the beating and charged him with aggravated assault.  Since Martin’s attacker is a juvenile, the records of proceedings are sealed to the public and the press.  Martin and his mother are convinced that the assault was an anti-gay hate crime.  “I’m disgusted,” his mother, Lakenya Martin, said to reporters. “I’m sorry, after the fact doesn’t do it. The school district let us down. I mean, let all of us down because it could have been anyone’s kid.”  The Cy-Fair School District has begun an investigation into the attack.  The bus driver has been suspended with pay.  Officials say they are looking into the actions of an assistant principal at Langham High.  Mrs. Martin, however, is far from satisfied.  “When the child does what they’re supposed to do and the adult doesn’t, what are you supposed to say then?  How do you make him feel comfortable? How do you give him back that sense of security,” she said.  She announced her intentions to move out of the neighborhood and the school district.  Reports suggest that she is acting to sue the school and the school district in civil court.  What makes this story all the more lamentable to us at the Unfinished Lives Project is that this entire tragedy could have been prevented if school officials had only acted responsibly and humanely.  GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian Straight Education Network, reports that a 2007 survey of 6,209 middle and high school students found that nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT students (86.2%) experienced harassment at school in the past year, three-fifths (60.8%) felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation and about a third (32.7%) skipped a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe.  GLSEN research also points out that school officials routinely underestimate the danger posed to LGBT students by bullying in their schools. Jayron Martin will be remembered at at rally and candlelight vigil planned for Sunday, November 22, 6:15 pm in the heart of the LGBTQ neighborhood in Dallas.

November 19, 2009 Posted by | African Americans, Beatings and battery, Bludgeoning, Bullying in schools, gay men, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slurs and epithets, Texas | , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Arrest Made in Hallowe’en Night Hate Crime Attack

Robert Bellamy, Jr.Lakeview, NY – One man has been apprehended, and two more are still at large in a Hallowe’en night attack on two men presumed to be gay.  Robert Bellamy, Jr., 23, (pictured at the left) was arrested by Nassau County law enforcement officers on November 5 in connection with the brutal harassment, stomping and kicking assault that sent two men to Mercy Hospital in the dead of the night.  Bellamy has been charged with robbery as a hate crime and two counts of assault.  Both victims were treated and released.  According to reporting by www.wpix.com, the two men targeted for the attack were dressed for a costume party.  One of the victims, who drew the most severe treatment, was dressed in drag.  What had started out as a Hallowe’en fun night turned threatening after the two men dropped by a convenience store after they left the party.  Three men, one of them Bellamy, allegedly hurled homophobic slurs and insults at the pair on store property.  When the costumed men left the convenience store to avoid further conflict, a car driven by a woman, loaded with the three alleged attackers, followed them.  Jumping out of the vehicle, the three assailants surrounded their victims.  Bellamy reportedly punched one of the men, calling him a “faggot” and knocking him to the ground.  The other two attackers, still at large as of this report, also hit both victims, beating them senseless.  All three then took turns kicking their downed prey repeatedly in the stomach.  As they left the scene, Bellamy allegedly rifled the pockets of the man he punched, beat and kicked on the ground, stealing $7 in cash.  The sexual orientation of the victims has not been determined.  At a press conference, Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey told WPIX reporters, “There was a perception whether real or not, that their sexual orientation may be different than the males.”  Bellamy was arraigned the following Thursday, while a manhunt is underway to locate and arrest the other two assailants.

November 14, 2009 Posted by | African Americans, Anglo Americans, Beatings and battery, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Mistaken as LGBT, New York, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slurs and epithets, Stomping and Kicking Violence | , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Georgetown U’s Second Bias-Related Attack

banner1

Washington, D.C. – According to Vox Populi, Georgetown’s most widely read blog, in the wee hours of November 1, a second anti-LGBT assault took place near the Georgetown University campus.  The university’s Department of Public Safety issued this Public Service Announcement concerning the attack: “Incident summary: On November 1, 2009 at 1:32 a.m., witnesses reported to DPS an assault on a student by an unknown male in the area of 36th & N Streets, NW. Prior to the physical assault, the suspect asked the victim several times, “Are you a homo?”  On November 1, 2009 at approximately 1:32 a.m., witnesses reported to DPS that a student walking in the area of 36th & N Streets, NW was assaulted by an unknown male. Immediately prior to the assault, the suspect asked the victim several times, “Are you a homo?” The suspect fled the scene after physically assaulting the victim.  DPS and GERMS responded to the scene. GERMS transported the victim to Georgetown University Hospital for treatment of the injuries sustained in the assault. DPS gathered information from witnesses and notified MPD. The investigation is ongoing.  Victim(s):The victim suffered injuries in the assault that were treated by GERMS and in the hospital emergency room.  Victim(s) status:GERMS responded to the scene and transported the victim to Georgetown University Hospital where the victim was treated and released. Appropriate University resources are being offered to the victim.  Witness description of suspect(s):The suspect is described as a white male, 6’2″ tall, with red and white face paint, wearing a black leather jacket. (This description was updated on November 2, 2009 at 1:00 p.m. to reflect a witnesses description that included an estimated height.)”  End of PSA.  Last week’s assault involved a woman perceived to be lesbian by her assailants on October 27. This second assault on a student assumed to be LGBT took place in spite of a rally decrying anti-gay violence on the campus by the LGBTQ Center and GU Pride, the LGBTQ advocacy organization, on Friday of last week.

November 3, 2009 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Beatings and battery, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Lesbian women, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Protests and Demonstrations, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, Unsolved LGBT Crimes, Washington, D.C., women | , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Georgetown U’s Second Bias-Related Attack

Student at Georgetown U Attacked Because of Sexual Orientation

georgetownWashington, D.C. – The Washington Post reports that a female student was assaulted and robbed allegedly because of her sexual orientation on Tuesday, October 27 while she was walking near the entrance to Georgetown University on Canal Road.  Her assailants yelled anti-gay slurs as they beat her, knocked her down, and robbed her of her book bag.  At the time of the attack, she was wearing a T-shirt bearing a gay rights slogan.  Reaction at GU was swift.  By Friday, 50 students protested the assault, showing their support for the woman who was targeted because of her perceived sexual orientation.  JM Alatis, a freshman who serves as historian and secretary of GU Pride, the campus LGBT rights organization, condemned the violence, “We should not have to fear for our lives when we walk down the street.”  The rally had been set in motion by Facebook and Twitter contacts in less than 24 hours, demonstrating the speed with which the linked-in community can respond to anti-LGBT violence.  Students say that intimidation and attacks like this are common in the GU neighborhood, on and off campus.  Speaking to WaPo reporters, sophomore Marcus Brazill said, “This stuff happens all the time, but a lot of us are afraid of reporting it.”  A Georgetown Med student was intimidated by homophobes with a broken glass bottle last fall, and in September 2007, a sophomore student was arrested in an incident that was considered a possible anti-LGBT hate crime.  The case was subsequently dropped according the WaPo, but the controversy led to the establishment of the first LGBTQ Resource Center on the campus of a Roman Catholic/Jesuit university in the nation.  Rev. Kelly O’Brien, S.J., Executive Director of Campus Ministry, commenting on the significance of the LGBTQ Center, said, “Campus Ministry is pleased to collaborate with the LGBTQ Resource Center to learn from and support Georgetown’s LGBTQ community. The Center helps us understand the issues, struggles, concerns, and hopes of the LGBTQ community so that we can better minister to those seeking our care.”  As of Friday, the assailants in this latest anti-LGBT attack were still at large.

October 31, 2009 Posted by | Beatings and battery, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Lesbian women, Mistaken as LGBT, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Protests and Demonstrations, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, Washington, D.C., women | Comments Off on Student at Georgetown U Attacked Because of Sexual Orientation

Sean Kennedy: Travesty of Justice Could Have Come Out Differently If Shepard Act Had Been In Place

 

Sean & Blue tie

Sean William Kennedy, 20

Washington, DC – Elke Kennedy and her husband, James Parker, were invited by the Human Rights Campaign to represent their slain gay son, Sean William Kennedy, at the ceremonies marking the enactment of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Law at the White House.  In a statement issued on Sean’s Last Wish, web site for the foundation established following the brutal murder of their son, the Greenville, South Carolina couple issued this statement:  “Elke and Jim are honored to represent the LGBT community in memory of their son Sean Kennedy, who was the victim of a hate crime on May 16, 2007 in Greenville, SC. Sean’s Last Wish foundation considers this a privilege to be the voice and represent the LGBT community as we continue to fight against hatred, bullying, violence and religious bigotry.”  In one of the most egregious abuses of justice in recent years, Sean Kennedy’s murderer, Stephen Moller, was indicted only for involuntary manslaughter and sentenced on June 11 2008 to a 5 year sentence suspended to three years, and received credit for the 199 days he served in county lock-up. He was supposed to stay in prison till September 7, 2009, but received 2 month credit for good behaviour by getting his GED while in prison.  The court was sympathetic to Moller because he had fathered a child who was born while he was serving his shortened sentence, and released him a week earlier than his abridged sentence even called for.  Had there been a Matthew Shepard Act on the books at the time of the Moller trial, federal officials could have intervened, investigated the murder as the anti-LGBT hate crime it was, and tried the defendant under a hate crime charge of murder.  South Carolina, however, never has enacted an anti-LGBT hate crimes prevention law, which coupled with local anti-gay attitudes, caused the breach of justice in the Sean Kennedy case.  Now, thanks to the lobbying of bereaved families like Sean’s, hate crimes against gay people have a fighting chance of being tried and punished in their true context.

October 29, 2009 Posted by | Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Beatings and battery, gay men, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Legislation, Matthew Shepard Act, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Social Justice Advocacy, South Carolina, Washington, D.C. | , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Sean Kennedy: Travesty of Justice Could Have Come Out Differently If Shepard Act Had Been In Place

Vicious Queens, NY Attack Highlights Need for a Federal Hate Crimes Law

Jack Price speaks from his hospital bed (NY Daily News photo).

Jack Price speaks from his hospital bed (NY Daily News photo).

Queens, NY – Two attackers beat a 49-year-old gay man within an inch of his life in the early morning hours of Friday October 8 near a 24-hour delicatessen where he had stopped to buy a pack of cigarettes.  Jack Price, described by friends as a likable man who went out of his way to help members of the community, was assaulted in the middle of the street in full view of the deli’s surveillance camera.  Two neighborhood men who allegedly carried out what authorities are calling a hate crime attack, Daniel Rodriguez, 21, and Daniel Aleman, 26, were identified by investigators from a close review of the surveillance video, punching, stomping, kicking, and slapping the victim.  Aleman was taken into custody and arraigned on October 11, and Rodriguez, who fled the state, was arrested in Norfolk, VA on October 13.  Both men are charged with felony hate crime assault.  The victim, who fought for his life in ICU at New York Queens Hospital, suffered a broken jaw, fractured ribs, a lacerated spleen and a collapsed lung in the beating.  He recovered enough to describe the crime scenario to reporters for the New York Daily News from his hospital bed.  As he was on his way home, Price said, he saw Rodriguez and Aleman, both of whom he recognized from the College Point Queens neighborhood, approaching him.  In Spanish, the two men called Price “a stupid f_____” and “a dumb f_____,” not realizing that Price spoke Spanish and could understand them.  Price stepped into the deli to buy cigarettes, thinking that his two assailants would leave, but they were waiting for him in the street when he came out of the shop, and reignited the confrontation.  Price recalled that one of the men threatened him, “I know where you live, f_____.”  The second man added, “You better run away before he kills you.”  Then the physical attack commenced.  Miraculously, he somehow survived the savage beating and managed to get home before losing consciousness.  Though Price says he does not remember very much about the beating, he says that when he regained consciousness in the hospital, he was surprised and relieved to be alive.  As for his alleged attackers, Price told the Daily News, “I hope they rot in jail…I don’t understand how someone can do this to somebody.  They almost killed another human being.”  City officials immediately decried the attack as an anti-gay hate crime, including City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, NY City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, and City Councilmember John Liu.

Leviticus 18:22 tattoo (News 7 photo).

Leviticus 18:22 tattoo (News 7 photo).

They are calling for the full penalty appropriate to a hate crime assault to be applied to the attackers, if proven guilty.  Hundreds of local citizens marched in protest of the attack, calling for an end to anti-LGBT violence in New York City on October 17.  Supporters of Rodriguez and Aleman have mounted their own rally, denying that the “incident” was a bias-motivated crime, according to yournabe.com.  Both the father and sister of Rodriguez have denied that he is anti-gay.  One of Rodriguez’s chief supporters proudly sported a tattoo on his forearm bearing a quotation from the Hebrew Scriptures, Leviticus 18:22, “You shall not lie with a male as one does a woman.  It is an abomination.” While the tattooed supporter denied that homophobia was a motivation in the assault, he said he has no problem with punishing gay people for their behavior.

October 24, 2009 Posted by | Beatings and battery, Bludgeoning, gay men, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino and Latina Americans, Legislation, Matthew Shepard Act, New York, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slurs and epithets, Stomping and Kicking Violence, Uncategorized | , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Vicious Queens, NY Attack Highlights Need for a Federal Hate Crimes Law