New Book Announcement: “The Meaning of Matthew” by Judy Shepard
The Matthew Shepard Foundation, http://www.matthewshepard.org, announces the publication of a new book on Matthew Shepard authored by his mother, Judy Shepard: The Meaning of Matthew: My Son’s Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed. From the book announcement letter:
“Today, the name Matthew Shepard is synonymous with gay rights, but before his grisly murder in 1998, Matthew was simply Judy Shepard’s son. For the first time in book form, Judy Shepard speaks about her loss, sharing memories of Matthew, their life as a typical American family, and the pivotal event in the small college town that changed everything.
“The Meaning of Matthew follows the Shepard family in the days immediately after the crime, when Judy and her husband traveled to see their incapacitated son, kept alive by life support machines; how the Shepards learned of the incredible response from strangers all across America who held candlelit vigils and memorial services for their child; and finally, how they struggled to navigate the legal system as Matthew’s murderers were on trial. Heart-wrenchingly honest, Judy Shepard confides with readers about how she handled the crippling loss of her child, why she became a gay rights activist, and the challenges and rewards of raising a gay child in America today.
“The Meaning of Matthew not only captures the historical significance and complicated civil rights issues surrounding one young man’s life and death, but it also chronicles one ordinary woman’s struggle to cope with the unthinkable.”
All proceeds from the sale of the book will go to support the work of the Matthew Shepard Foundation. This is a landmark book not to be missed by supporters of the Unfinished Lives Project.
Sean William Kennedy’s Killer Released Early by South Carolina
Greenville, SC – Sean William Kennedy’s killer, Stephen Moller, has been released early from prison, even after a reduced sentence that scandalized the nation. Moller, sentenced in June 2008 to 3 years for Kennedy’s murder, was given every break in the book. A massive letter writing campaign scotched the first attempt to parole Moller early. Hundreds of letters flooded the SC Department of Corrections to stop any early release, and it appeared that the state relented. Such was not the case, as Moller’s early release this week demonstrates. He served less than a year for the murder of 20-year-old Sean (pictured to the left). Kennedy’s mother, Elke Kennedy, issued this statement through a bulletin from the Human Rights Campaign: “This adds insult to injury. To release a man just one-year after his sentencing in this heinous crime and to inform the victim’s mother through an automated recording is despicable,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. “Sean Kennedy was violently attacked for no other reason than his sexual orientation. This is a text book case of why we need to pass federal legislation that would bring stiffer penalties and provide local authorities with the full resources of the U.S. Justice Department to address vicious hate crimes.” On the night of May 16/17, 2007, Moller attacked Kennedy outside Brew’s Pub, a popular Greenville bar. According to reports, Moller accompanied the assault with anti-gay epithets. He later bragged about bashing “that fagot [sp.],” and suggested that he owed Moller $500 for hurting his hand when he struck Kennedy in the face. The blow hit with such force that Kennedy fell back and sustained brain injury from the combination of the punch and the fall. South Carolina still has no anti-LGBT hate crimes legislation on the books, and this outrageous miscarriage of the law is one more strong reason for the passage of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act now before the U.S. Senate. For more information, go to www.seanslastwish.org.
Serial Hate Crimes Against LGBTs Up 63% in Colorado
Denver – In a report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs issued Tuesday, the numbers of anti-LGBT hate crimes in the Centennial State jumped 63% in one year. Among the 2008 murders of queer folk was the notorious beating-death of 18-year-old Angie Zapata, a transgender Latina living in Greeley. Allen Ray Andrade, a date, repeatedly bashed Zapata with a home fire extinguisher until she succumbed. Andrade’s conviction for murder under Colorado’s Hate Crime Law was a landmark moment, demonstrating to the nation how significant hate crime enhancements can be in penalizing fatal bias-related attacks against LGBT people. Though he used a version of the trans-panic defense to excuse his actions, arguing that Zapata had somehow deserved her death because of “deceiving” him as to her biological gender, Andrade was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. According to the Denver Daily News, the Colorado Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (COAVP) expressed concern over the 24% spike in the number of offenders, meaning that multiple perpetrators attacked a smaller number of victims during the past year. This indicates that certain victims of anti-LGBT hate crimes are targeted for violence that unfolds in a spectrum from verbal harassment to physical attack by more than one antagonist. While this disturbing feature of homophobic and transphobic violence had been suspected by gay rights activists, this report in Colorado is the first to confirm their fears. The percentage of victims also rose significantly during 2008. While the nationwide average rise in victims of harassment, bashing, and murder was 2%, the Colorado numbers moved up a full 8%. Added to the increases of reported violent attacks against LGBT people in Minnesota, Michigan, California, and Tennessee, the Colorado hate crimes statistics contribute to a growing sense that a full-scale national trend of increasing harm against members of the sexual minority is in the offing.
WaPo: Anti-Latino/a and Anti-LGBT Hate Crimes Spiral Upward Together
Washington, DC – The Washington Post reports in a late-breaking story that incidents of bias-related crimes against Latino/a people and LGBT people are rising sharply on seemingly parallel tracks, according to FBI findings. In a June 16 article entitled “Hate Crimes Rise as Immigration Debate Heats Up,” Spencer Hsu, reporter for WaPo, writes that officials are concerned about the abrupt rise in violent crimes against both groups: “The FBI reported in October that the number of [total] hate crime incidents dropped in 2007 by about 1 percent, to 7,624. But violence against Latinos and gay people bucked the trend. The number of hate crimes directed at gay men and lesbians increased about 6 percent, from 1,195 to 1,265, the FBI reported.” It should be noted that the actual rise in hate crimes against LGBT people is actually in excess of 28% in the last year, according to the more comprehensive statistics reported by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. Shrill voices in the media and organization of xenophobic hate groups on the internet are contributing to this alarming trend. Most recently, as Mariela Rosario writes for http://www.latina.com, Minutemen stand accused of the murder of a Latino immigrant family. In a May 30th home invasion attack just now being shared widely in the national media, three members of the anti-immigrant group Minutemen American Defense (MAD) allegedly burst into the Arivaca, AZ house of Raul Junior Flores, 29, and his 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia, and shot them dead. Flores’ wife using a shotgun returned fire, repelling the attackers, and wounding one of them. Shawna Forde, 41, Jason Eugene Bush, 34, and Albert Robert Glaxiola, 42, stand accused of the crime. The stated mission of the Minutemen American Defense is summed up in Forde’s own words, “We will expose and report what we know and find, we will recruit the serious and train the revolutionist, time for words have passed the time for bravery and conviction are now.” The Pima County (AZ) Sheriff’s Department is still investigating. The murder of Flores and his young daughter has sparked outrage among Latino/a rights groups. As The Unfinished Lives Project has previously reported in numerous stories over several months, the tragic
Romel and Diego Sucuzhañay at Brooklyn DA's Press Conference
victimization of Latino and Latina folk, gay, bi, transgender and straight often converges in a terrible way. José Sucuzhañay, and his brother, Romel, Ecuadorans visiting the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, NY were brutally assaulted on the night of December 7, 2008. Hakim Scott, 25, and Keith Phoenix, 28, beat the Sucuzhañay brothers with a beer bottle and an aluminum ball bat shouting slurs at them for their ethnicity and their perceived sexual orientation. The savage attack was apparently motivated by a toxic combined hatred of Latino immigrants and gay people. The brothers, huddled together against the cold, were walking arm-in-arm from a party. Ironically, José, who died from his wounds, and his brother Romel, are both heterosexual. José leaves behind a 10-year-old son, Brian, and a 5-year-old daughter, Joanna, who is living with Down Syndrome. As an attorney for the Sucuzhañay family told the New York Post, “The family has suffered tremendously. It was a brutal murder.” Scott and Phoenix have been indicted for second-degree murder as a hate crime by the Brooklyn District Attorney, and await trial. Often set at odds by “common wisdom” and the media, the Latino/a immigrant community and the LGBT community share a truly common need for unity in the face of irrational hatred of “the other.” The Ecuadoran media covered the crime widely, putting an important face on anti-LGBT hate crimes in the United States.
Angie Zapata Verdict in: Andrade Guilty of 1st Degree Murder, Hate Crime Charges; Sentenced to Life
Allen Andrade and attorney hear guilty verdict for the hate crime murder of Angie Zapata (Eric Bellamy photo, Colorado Independent)
Greeley, CO: Allen Ray Andrade was found guilty this afternoon on all four counts against him in the murder of Angie Zapata, a transgender teen woman. The jury deliberated less than three hours before arriving at its verdict. Andrade crushed Angie Zapata’s skull with repeated blows from a metal fire extinguisher on July 17, 2008 after spending 36 hours with her in a 400 square foot apartment. The jury rejected the “trans-panic” defense mounted by Andrade’s attorneys and invoked the penalties in Colorado’s comprehensive hate crime law in what is being called by LGBT rights advocates a “landmark ruling” that demonstrates to Coloradans the need for their bias-motivated crime statute in the prosecution of homophobic killers.
Angie Zapata was 18 at the time of her murder
Judge Marcelo Kopcow read the verdict that found him guilty of first-degree murder, bias-motivated crime, aggravated motor vehicle theft in the first degree and identity theft. Less than an hour later, Judge Kopcow sentenced 32-year-old Andrade to life without the possibility of parole. Looking at Andrade, the judge then said, “I will say, Mr. Andrade, I hope as you’re spending the remaining part of your natural life in the department of corrections… that you every day think about the violence and the brutality that you caused on this fellow human being. And the pain you have caused not only your family, but the family of Angie Zapata.”
Zapata Family at a vigil for Angie in 2008
Gonzalo Zapata, Angie’s brother, spoke to the press following the verdict on behalf of his sisters and his mother, who were also present:
“Angie was my sister. She was a member of our family. We loved her very much and we will miss her every day. Every day and every night, my mom has to deal with the great pain that she saw one of her babies being buried.
“Angie was brave. She had guts, had courage and was beautiful, was fun and was loving. Life was sometimes difficult for her. We learned along with her, to learn she was born a girl with a body that was wrong for her.
“This week, we are deeply saddened and angry as we witness graphic details about the last few minutes of my sister’s life. A big brother is supposed to protect … ” [he breaks down momentarily, and then regains his composure].
“I got it,” he said. “A big brother’s supposed to protect his little sister. It breaks my heart to think there was nothing I could do to protect my little sister.
“Only a monster can look at a beautiful 18-year-old and beat her to death. This monster not only hit my sister but continued to beat her head in over and over and over and over again until her head was crushed in and then left her there to die. He’ll never understand how angry we are at him and how much he has hurt us.
“We will always love you, Angie. And we will always miss you, hija. Thank you.”
Fate of Angie Zapata’s Confessed Murderer Goes to Jury
Allen Ray Andrade, on trial for the Murder of transgender woman Angie Zapata, awaits his verdict in Greeley, CO today. Prosecution goes for first degree murder. Andrade, already confessed to the murder, was deeply homophobic, according to statements from the jail to girlfriends, such as “Gay things must die.”
Justice Coming for Angie Zapata
Angie Zapata, 18, and alleged murderer, Allen Andrade, courtesy of ABC News
Denver, CO: Allen Andrade, 32, told investigators that he bashed Angie Zapata in the head twice with a fire extinguisher. He confessed that he thought he had “killed it” when Zapata roused, and then he clobbered her again, delivering the coup de grace. That was last July. Now he is slated to go on trial for bias-motivated murder in Greeley, CO where he carried out the crime because he found out Zapata, an 18-year-old male-to-female transwoman, was biologically male.
Angie Zapata
Born Justin Zapata, Angie had been living as a woman since the age of 16. She had striking beauty, attracting many admirers, though according to her sister, Monica, her loves ended by her boyfriends going back to biological women. Angie was a gentle, graceful, loving sister, who suspended her life in Fort Lupton, where she was raised, to come to Greeley to help her sister take care of her children. Monica found Angie’s battered corpse in her apartment, covered in a blanket.
For two weeks, investigators sought the killer, and finally arrested Andrade on July 30. He made an initial confession which a judge ruled inadmissible on a technicality. He has been held in jail without bond since his arrest for the murder. While behind bars Andrade made recorded phone calls to girlfriend claiming that when he discovered Zapata’s biological status, he “snapped.” In another conversation, he told his girlfriend that “gay things need to die.” The phone call transcripts and recordings will be admitted in evidence in the trial.
According to the Associated Press, Andrade is going to be the first person prosecuted for a hate crime under the sexual orientation section of Colorado’s hate crimes law. Colorado is one of 11 states to have hate crimes enhancements in their statutes. The comprehensive Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on April 2, 2009, would allow the FBI and other Federal Agencies to investigate such crimes, and to support the local authorities in carrying out their investigations, as well. Passage of the LLEHCPA remains a critical element of deterring and punishing hate crimes offenders for violence related to sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.
While nothing can bring Angie Zapata back to her family, friends and loved ones, justice for her and for all transgender victims of hate crime violence, which has been so long in coming, may finally be on the horizon. Stay in touch for further developments.
Fight Hate Crimes Campaign Launches Effort to Pass Matthew Shepard Act
The Human Rights Campaign has launched its big federal legislative push to enact the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also called the Matthew Shepard Act, named in memory of the most widely recognized LGBT hate crimes victim in American history. Matthew Shepard was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by two Laramie, Wyoming men in October 1998. Both pled guilty, and are serving life sentences for their crime. Visit the HRC site for more information: www.hrc.org/sites/hatecrimes/index.asp.
Martinez casket header for Denver Post article on F.C.'s murder
Fred C. Martinez, Jr. (1985-2001), a sixteen-year-old Navajo, is featured in the HRC campaign. He was one of the first subjects of research for the Unfinished Lives Project, and will figure prominently in Dr. Sprinkle’s forthcoming book, Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memory of LGBT Hate Crimes Murder Victims. The book is still in the writing stage at this point, with a projected completion date of September 2009.
"Dance to the Berdache," George Catlin, ca. 1830
Martinez was a Two-Spirit person, also called a berdache. F.C., as his friends called him, suffered harassment in the Cortez, CO public schools for his transgender identity. In June 2001, on the night of the Ute Mountain Carnival and Rodeo, Shaun Murphy, a resident of Farmington, NM, lured F.C. into a narrow, deep canyon cut diagonally through the south part of Cortez, and cracked open his skull with a 25 pound rock. Murphy left him to die of exposure and blood loss, bragging the night of the murder that he had “bug-smashed a joto,” slang for “fag.” At the time F.C.’s body was discovered by small boys playing on the canyon floor five days after the homicide, his remains were so decomposed that his mother could identify him only by the blue bandana he wore when he left her home.
Shaun Murphy, F.C.'s killer
Murphy, 18, was sentenced to 40 years for F.C.’s murder. There is little to indicate that F.C., the most famous person ever to live in Cortez, had ever existed. Neither Colorado nor the United States has enacted anti-hate crime legislation. His mother, Pauline Mitchell, still works as an advocate for LGBT people and for the memory of her son. She visits his grave often, kneeling on the grass, talking to him in Navajo and English, thanking him for understanding that things are taking so long to change.
F.C. and his mom, Pauline Mitchell
There is strong medicine in the F.C. Martinez, Jr. story. As a nadleeh, as Navajo people refer to their Two-Spirits, he was a sign of the balance between the feminine and the masculine in us all. He walked the Way of Beauty. As the Navajo Blessingway Chant says:
Earth’s body has become my body
by means of this I shall live on.
Earth’s mind has become my mind
by means of this I shall live on.
Earth’s voice has become my voice
by means of this I shall live on.
30-Year Sentence for Gay Bashing in Dallas
Jimmy Lee Dean After Near Fatal Assault (courtesy of Dallas Voice)
DallasVoice.com News Editor, John Wright reports that Jonathan Russell Gunther, 32, has been found guilty on March 4 of first-degree felony robbery and sentenced to 30 years for brutally attacking 43-year-old bisexual Jimmy Lee Dean on the night of July 17, 2008. Gunther and Bobby Jack Singleton, 29, both of Garland, Texas, beat and robbed Dean one block off the famous Cedar Springs Strip, the center of LGBT life in the DFW Metroplex. Singleton has yet to be tried for the crime.
The two assailants pistol-whipped Dean with a 9mm Glock handgun, rendering him unconscious, and then repeatedly kicked him in the head and body as he lay on the pavement. Their attack could have proved fatal, were it not for the intervention of Michael Robinson, a gay man who witnessed the crime in progress and called for help. Dean’s face is severely disfigured, he has lost his sense of smell, and suffers bouts of depression as a result of the incident. His eyelid still droops after two surgeries and may not be repairable. Before the sentencing, Dean spoke out about the crime, “I have never and could never see a reason to beat someone nearly to death just to have a good time…The only thing that will really make it easier is after the other trial. One down, one to go.”
Dallas-area LGBT folk and allies took to the streets in protest of the Dean attack, and the sluggish response of local officials to the rising anti-LGBT violence in the city. Dallas accounts for 34% of all the anti-gay hate violence in Texas.
José Sucuzhañay dead after Brooklyn hate crime attack
José O. Sucuzhañay
31-year-old real estate broker José O. Sucuzhañay died on Friday, December 12th, after spending five days on a ventilator in a brain-dead condition.
Sucuzhañay and his brother Romel were walking home arm-in-arm after a night of drinking in a Brooklyn bar when three assailants attacked the brothers, having mistaken them as gay. The attackers emerged from a maroon SUV, yelling, “Check out those faggots over there.” The attackers also shouted racial epithets. Witnesses said the murderers first smashed a bottle over Sucuzhañay’s head and then struck him in the head with an aluminum baseball bat.
Gay City News describes the attack this way:
According to police, one assailant broke the bottle over Sucuzhanay’s head. After the victim fell to the ground, another of the attackers began beating him with the bat. Romel Sucuzhanay managed to flee from the path of the first assailant who chased after him with the broken beer bottle. He finally prevailed on the men to stop beating his brother when he showed them that he had a cellphone to use to call police.
Sucuzhañay’s mother was still on her way from Ecuador when José died at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens. The family had hoped to keep their brother alive on life support long enough for their mother to arrive and say good-bye to her son.
A third brother, Diego Sucuzhañay, calls his brother’s death “a loss beyond words.”
Sources:
Gay City News: “Hate Crime Victim Brain-Dead”
Box Turtle Bulletin: “Capital Crime: Appearing Gay”
Newsday: “Immigrant dead in possible hate crime”
Box Turtle Bulletin: “Brooklyn Hate Crime Victim Dies”
About
If you are a first-time visitor to the Unfinished Lives Project website, we invite you to read A Welcome Message introducing you to our project. We are truly grateful for your visit.
The Unfinished Lives Project website is a place of public discourse which remembers and honors LGBTQ hate crime victims, while also revealing the reality of unseen violence perpetrated against people whose only “offense” is their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender presentation. LGBTQ people in the United States are suffering a slow-rolling decimation of terror and murder all across the country. Every locale and demographic of society are affected: First Nations, Anglo, Black, Latino and Latina, South and Southeast Asian, Transgender, Bisexuals, Gay men, Lesbians, disabled, young, and mature. Homophobia has a long, crooked arm, and it is reaching out to snatch the life away from women and men whose tragic stories are under-reported to begin with, and whose memories are swiftly forgotten.
The horror of these killings transcends the shock and bereavement of loved ones and friends. These are not typical homicides; they are not killings for money or drugs, incidents of domestic strife, or crimes of passion. The vicious nature of hate crimes against LGBTQ persons is extremely brutal, grotesquely violent, and egregiously hateful.
Each murder serves the LGBTQ population as a sobering warning about the actual level of danger in our communities. The message these killings send is that freedom and open life for LGBTQ people is a cruel dream. Every time we remember one of these victims, however, the intentions of their killers are frustrated. To remember these women and men is to begin the process of changing the culture that killed them.
Our Project Director
Dr. Stephen V. Sprinkle (Keith Tew photo).
Stephen V. Sprinkle is Director of Field Education and Supervised Ministry, and Professor of Practical Theology at Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas, a post he has held since 1994. An ordained Baptist minister, he is the first open and out Gay scholar in the history of the Divinity School, and the first open and out LGBTQ person to be tenured there. Read More…
Recent Social Justice Advocacy Activity By Dr. Sprinkle
Summer 2009 – Dr. Sprinkle responded to the Fort Worth Police Department and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission Raid on the Rainbow Lounge, Fort Worth’s newest gay bar, on June 28, 2009, the exact 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. Dr. Sprinkle was invited to speak at three protest events sponsored by Queer LiberAction of Dallas. Here, he is keynoting the Rainbow Lounge Protest at the Tarrant County Courthouse on July 12, 2009. Read More…
Contact Us
Communicate with the Unfinished Lives project team:
info@unfinishedlivesblog.com
Schedule a Presentation
Dr. Sprinkle will gladly present his acclaimed presentation to your organization. To arrange an Unfinished Lives presentation for your organization or group, please contact us.
Dr. Sprinkle has given his Unfinished Lives presentation to these and other community groups and organizations. Read More…
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Publisher: Steve Sprinkle (Project Director)
Steve Sprinkle
Unfinished Lives: Remembering LGBT Hate Crime VictimsBrite Divinity School/Texas Christian UniversityFort Worth TXprofessor, minister, author, blogger, LGBTQ advocate
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