Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Gay Bashing in Savannah “Not A Hate Crime”

Stanzel (l), Cronauer (r)

Savannah, GA – The Chatham County District Attorney will not charge two U.S. Marines who gay bashed a man in June with a hate crime.  EDGE reports that the Marines, Keil Cronauer, 22, and Christopher Stanzel, 23, will face misdemeanor battery charges in court on September 9.  On June 12, a gay man, Kieran Daly, was assaulted, cursed for being gay, and left in a state bad enough that his friends administered emergency CPR to jumpstart his pulse.  Cronauer accused Daly of “winking” at him, which the victim strongly denies.  Stanzel allegedly delivered the blow to the back of Daly’s head, giving him a bruise on his brain.  The blow is what the DA,  Alicia Johnson, is calling “a punch,” and she cannot bring herself to move the charge from a misdemeanor to a felony since the victim had no “sustained injuries.”  DA Johnson told the GA Voice that FBI agents had reviewed Daly’s medical records, and found “no merit” in categorizing the attack as a hate crime.  “I can’t speak on the specifics because this is pending litigation, but for a crime to be considered a felony [which a hate crime is considered to be] there has to be proof of a sustained injury,” Johnson said. If convicted of misdemeanor battery, the Marines would face no more than a year in jail and a fine of no more than $1200.  The state of Georgia has no statute protecting its LGBT residents from hate crimes.  The key to prosecuting the Marines was always the implementation of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act that President Obama signed into law last October.  The ruling of the FBI, coupled with the familiar reluctance of local law enforcement to prosecute anti-gay violence in Savannah, seems to have put the Marines out of the reach of justice for now.  Both Marines were rushed from the Chatham County jail to the custody of military police shortly after being arrested in June.  Georgia Equality and other allies of the LGBTQ community have rallied to protest this avoidance on the part of officers of the law charged to protect the community.  As the Voice reports, numbers of LGBT activists and allies met in Johnson Square in the historic district of Savannah, Ga., back on June 20 to express their outrage over the alleged beating and to call for Georgia to pass a state hate crimes law. Now, the Executive Director of Georgia Equality Jeff Graham is calling for the Justice Department to revisit the crime, in hopes that the attack will finally be ruled a hate crime.  “I’m very concerned this happened in the first place. But these misdemeanor charges are outrageous,” Graham said. “And then to turn [the Marines] over to the military police is a miscarriage of justice.”  The LGBTQ community in Savannah is questioning at what point can an attack on a person because of perceived sexual orientation be considered a hate crime.  Does it take two blows?  A maiming?  God forbid, a murder?

September 2, 2010 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Blame the victim, FBI, gay men, gay panic defense, Georgia, harassment, Hate Crimes, hate speech, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Legislation, Matthew Shepard Act, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Protests and Demonstrations, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, U.S. Marines | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Gay Methodist Preacher and Boyfriend Attacked in Atlanta

Rev. Josh Noblitt (St. Mark UMC photo)

Piedmont Park, Atlanta, Georgia – A gay United Methodist minister and his boyfriend were attacked and robbed on July 2 at at picnic in the park.  Rev. Josh Noblitt, 32, Social Justice Minister at St. Mark United Methodist Church, and Trent Williams, 25, were just finishing up their picnic and had started playing cards when six young men approached the couple asking if they were gay.  Jarvis Johnson, 19, Sam Johnson, 18 and four other males between the ages of 13-17 allegedly began threatening them at that point, saying “Y’all gay? We ought to beat y’all for that.”  Then three members of the gang physically attacked Noblitt and Williams, demanding money.  One of them wielded a large stick, according to The Examiner.   Noblitt and Williams proved not to be the easy marks their robbers expect two gay men to be.  Williams, Noblitt’s partner, knew karate and kicked the assailants in the face. Thwarted, the attackers fled, and Rev. Noblitt called 911 to report the attack.  Then, “out of nowhere,” as Noblitt said to the GA Voice, 8 to 10 youths rushed up to surround the pair.  At one point, one of the assailants pressed a loaded pistol to Rev. Noblitt’s head.  Hearing sirens, the gang broke off the attack and attempted to escape.  When Atlanta Police arrived on the scene, they found some of the youths hiding behind a building, and six suspects were rounded up.  The two adults were arrested and are being held in the Fulton County Jail  Atlanta PD sources say that the suspects were also involved in a series of robberies in and around the park.  As the minister said to the GA Voice, “Sometimes we live in a bubble, but right here in Midtown a hate crime can happen.”  Rev. Noblitt, an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church, has wrestled with the meaning of what happened to him and his lover in the park.  In an open letter to the St. Mark congregation read to worshippers on July 11, he said, “Over this past week, I have spent a lot of that time thinking about the young men I encountered in the park, and I am sure they have thought a lot about me. I wonder how people so young could have found themselves in a position to make the decision to assault and rob people that they perceived to be gay and not think through the harm that it would cause to us, to the community and to themselves.” Noblitt went on to say, “Do they really hate me and people like me? Or do they merely think that we are easy targets? What led them to ask us if we were gay and then to conclude without even waiting for a response that we should be beaten for that? Would they still have approached us if we had been a man and a woman? Would they still have approached us if we were two men of the same race? Where did they even get these ideas in the first place?” The full text of the open letter may be seen here. What amounted to be a very close call for the couple could easily have taken a lethal turn.  Rev. Noblitt continues to rely on his faith to make sense of the assault, and to put his life back together again, as the young African American men face the legal system.  It is not clear whether this attack will be investigated as a hate crime.

July 24, 2010 Posted by | African Americans, Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Bludgeoning, gay men, Georgia, gun violence, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Social Justice Advocacy, St. Mark United Methodist Church Atlanta | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Second Gay Bashing Outrages Savannah

Savannah Protest Rally/Richard Burkhart photo for Savannah Daily News

Savannah, GA – A second gay man has come forward to report that he was the victim of a gay bashing in Savannah.  John Takats, a grad student at the Savannah College of Art and Design issued a statement to the press through Georgia Equality claiming that he was called a “faggot” and struck in the back of the head so hard he fell to the sidewalk on February 27, 2010. While he admits he did not come forward to issue a complaint to police at the time out of fear, Mr. Takats felt he had to come forward when news of the June 12 bashing of another gay man, Kieran Daly, by two U.S. Marines hit newsstands. Mr. Takats says that his boyfriend had stepped away to recover a lost item when four people, two men and two women, menaced him, shouting, “What are you looking at?” and hurling anti-gay epithets at him.  The blow to his head and kicks to his body stunned him, and the next thing he remembered was his boyfriend trying to revive him.  In part, Mr. Takats’ account is as follows: “As the males approached me they started swinging. I immediately put up my hands, in front of my face, to protect myself. At that time, clearly out of nowhere, one of the males struck me in the back of my head. I was kicked till I fell to the ground by either the same (or the other) male. At that time, I heard one of the females scream ‘Stop that!’ The group ran away from the scene. I was completely shocked, hurting and confused and I began crying.” Project Q Atlanta has a Mr. Takats full statement online.  The Daly case entered a new phase last week when the FBI and the local police began investigating whether that attack on Mr. Daly was a hate crime.  The Anti-Defamantion League has issued a press release praising the move on the part of law enforcement. Bill Nigut, Southeastern Regional Director of the ADL said, “If this is a hate crime, prosecution under the new law will send a strong statement to the people of Savannah that violence against gays will not be tolerated.”  Georgia Equality has learned from hard experience that the Savannah-Chatham Police Department has often been demeaning and unresponsive to LGBT complaints.  Kevin Clark, Georgia Equality’s Savannah Chapter head, told WSAV News 3 that these attacks are just the latest installments in a pattern of violent anti-gay hate crimes in Savannah over the last five years.  Speaking to a protest rally of 150 citizens calling for justice in the Kieran Daly gay bashing case, Clark said, “It should only take one or two individuals who have been attacked or know of others who have been attacked to get the attention of someone in leadership in this community– that in our opinion should have stepped forward way before now and condemned the violence and put out a loud call for swift just action here.”  Savannah is a “military city,” close to the Marine Corps Air Station in nearby Beaufort, South Carolina, where both of Daly’s alleged Marine attackers were stationed.  But what sets Savannah apart from other cities with large military bases nearby, according to Jim Morekis of Connect Savannah, is its “large and influential gay community.”  Morekis concluded his op-ed piece, “Let’s hope that the two Marines who attacked Daly receive a fair trial, and if found guilty receive a punishment suited to the crime. And let’s hope that society, and the military, can continue to move beyond ignorance and prejudice. A good start would be for the Georgia legislature to put a fair hate crime law on the books so we can join the rest of the nation.”

June 25, 2010 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, FBI, gay men, Georgia, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Legislation, military, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Protests and Demonstrations, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, South Carolina, Stomping and Kicking Violence, U.S. Marines | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Second Gay Bashing Outrages Savannah

FBI Asks, “Marine Gay Bashing A Hate Crime?”

Savannah, GA – The FBI is investigating last Saturday’s brutal assault case of a gay man by two U.S. Marines as a possible hate crime, according to the islandpacket.com and the Beaufort Gazette.  As reported in this blog, 26-year-old Savannah man, Kieran Daly was allegedly battered unconscious by two Marines stationed at the nearby Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort, South Carolina because the victim “winked at them.”  The cause cited by the Marines, one of whom is a lance corporal and the other a corporal, has ignited a storm of controversy in the LGBT community and beyond.  Keil Joseph Cronauer, 22, and Christopher Charles Stanzel, 23, were arrested by Savannah-Chatham Police near the site where the victim was knocked unconscious on the pavement in the downtown area of the city.  According to police reports, the two Marines were fleeing the scene when they were apprehended.  Daly, the victim, insists that he never harassed the Marines in any way, and that their allegation that he “winked” at them in a flirtatious was was because he was squinting from fatigue.  As he walked away from them to diffuse the argument, one of the Marines shouted a homophobic slur at him and slugged him in the back of the head with a fist, causing seizures and brain bruising.  Witnesses corroborate Daly’s story, according to the police report, contending that the Marines were the aggressors in the argument and the attack. Daly is still hospitalized from his injuries.  Cronauer and Stanzel were taken to the Chatham County Jail. The pair were charged with misdemeanor battery and their bond was set at $1,850. They were released from the jail later on Saturday to military police, according to the jail log. If military investigators deem the crime serious or if the charges in Georgia are elevated, the two also could face court martial, Gunnery Sergeant Chad McMeen, spokesman for the USMC, said.  With the controversy surrounding repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in the daily news, and the outspoken opposition to LGB people serving openly in the military, activists are alleging that homophobic attitudes may have played into the hair-trigger attack of the Marines against their victim.

June 16, 2010 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Blame the victim, DADT, FBI, gay men, gay panic defense, Georgia, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, military, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Social Justice Advocacy, South Carolina, U.S. Marines | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Skittish Marines Gay Bash Man in Savannah

Keil Joseph Cronauer, 22, and Christopher Charles Stanzel, 23 (pictured L-R)

Savannah, GA – Two U.S. Marines were imprisoned Saturday for an unprovoked attack on a gay man in a downtown park.  Kieran Daly, 26, an openly gay man, was allegedly accosted with homophobic slurs and then brutally attacked by Keil Joseph Cronauer, 22, and Christopher Charles Stanzel, 23, both stationed at Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort, South Carolina.  The Marines, in town on leave, were apprehened by Savannah-Chatham Police Officers as they ran from the scene of the crime, and arrested for what the victim and witnesses to the assault are calling an anti-gay hate crime, according to the Savannah Daily News.  Though the Marines maintained to police that they were merely rebuffing unwanted attention from Daly, witnesses say that both men charged upon Daly after he tried to walk away from them.  The witnesses further report that one of the Marines became enraged, shouting that Daly had “winked” at him.  One of the Marines demanded that Daly respect him because he had recently served in Iraq, and one of them yelled a homophobic epithet at Daly as the attack unfolded.  In a rage, one of them struck the victim on the skull from behind with his fist.  Daly fell to the ground suffering two seizures, rendered unconscious.  At one point, the victim apparently stopped breathing, since police reporting to the scene saw Daly’s friends applying CPR to him as he lay motionless on the pavement.  He was rushed to Memorial University Medical Center, where he was diagnosed with bruises on his brain.  Daly’s assailants were arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery for attacking the gay man.  The crime was committed at about 3:45 AM near Congress and Bull Streets, near historic Forsyth Park.  In a hospital room interview late Saturday with the Daily News, Daly makes a point of saying that he in no way winked at or otherwise provoked the young Marines. “The guy thought I was winking at him,” Daly said. “I told him, ‘I was squinting, man. … I’m tired.’ That’s the last thing I remember is walking away.”  Daly is expected to be in the hospital for several days. While Savannah-Chatham police say that their LGBT liaison officer is closely monitoring the subject, nothing at this point indicates that the case is being investigated as a hate crime.  The relatively mild charge against the Marines indicates a reluctance to break with Savannah’s bad reputation among its gay and lesbian population. Jess Morgan, Gay-Straight Alliance President at Armstrong State Atlantic University, told the Daily News that LGBT residents of Savannah face discrimination and harassment on a regular basis.  They cannot safely be open about their sexual orientation in any public way without threat of punishment, Morgan said. Georgia still does not have anti-LGBT hate crime protection on the the state level, one of only five states that have no such law on the books.  Daly may be a civilian casualty of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT).  Chicago Pride points out that the firestorm over repeal of DADT has created an increasingly tense situation for lesbians and gays coming into contact with Marines.  The Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, General James T. Conway, is commonly identified by national media as leading the fight against the repeal of DADT among senior military officers, suggesting to Marines that anger against LGBT people is somehow justified. Police records show Cronauer and Stanzel have been released to into the custody of Marine military police.

June 14, 2010 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Blame the victim, Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT), gay men, gay panic defense, Gay-Straight Alliances, Georgia, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, military, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slurs and epithets, South Carolina, U.S. Marines | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Skittish Marines Gay Bash Man in Savannah

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