Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Bad Hombres: Arrests in Possible Anti-LGBT Violence in West Texas

Brewster County, TX – Two men have been arrested and charged with kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 19-year-old man in Terlingua, Texas on Sunday, December 6 in what is unfolding into a possible anti-gay hate crime story. While the sexual orientation of the victim remains officially undisclosed, local sources allege that the teenager is gay.  Daniel Martinez, 46, has been charged with sexual assault and is being held on $35,000 bond. Kristopher Buchanan, 27, is being held on outstanding warrants from other counties. The suspects are expected to face additional charges.  Pink News summarizes reports from Texas saying that the victim ,whose name has not been released by law enforcement, was abducted outside a bar in Terlingua, a town on the Texas-Mexico Border, and driven in his own car to a remote area in southern Brewster County.  The Big Bend Gazette reports that the youth was sexually assaulted by the pair before his car was set afire.  He was forced into a private residence where his attackers sexually assaulted him again.  He managed to escape, running three miles across the desert to a highway where a Brewster County Sheriff’s Deputy spotted him and took him to a hospital for treatment.  Officials say that the victim is currently recovering in an undisclosed location.  Law enforcement has been tight-lipped about the crime, but both local and LGBT press have speculated that the assault was an anti-gay hate crime.  Some have gone so far as to equate the attack with the fatal pistol-whipping of hate crime victim Matthew Shepard.  When questioned about the investigation, Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson told reporters that the case is being treated as a kidnapping, sexual assault and auto arson. “Everybody’s in jail,” said Dodson. “That’s the best part.”  A rally was held last night in support of the victim.

December 15, 2009 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Arson, gay teens, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Kidnapping and sexual assault, Latino and Latina Americans, Law and Order, Matthew Shepard, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Protests and Demonstrations, rape, Texas, Vigils | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 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

Puerto Rican Gay Teen’s Confessed Murderer Sent for Psychological Testing

Juan A. Martínez Matos in Custody

The confessed killer of  gay teen Jorge Steven López Mercado has been ordered by a judge to undergo psychological evaluation, according to EDGE Boston.  Juan A. Martínez Matos, who confessed that he slaughtered his victim in a moment of “gay panic,” will be tested as to his fitness to stand trial before being returned to the court in Caguas on or before January 13, 2010.  LGBT advocates in Puerto Rico and on the United States mainland have expressed anger at the judicial move.  Pedro Julio Serrano, leading LGBT activist, told EDGE on December 9, “This is outrageous. The reality is we’re seeking justice and we will not rest until this process is done without prejudice.”  Serrano said that the concerns expressed by the gay youth’s grieving family were simply for justice to be done.  Both Serrano and López Mercado’s family have been assured by local prosecutor Yaritza Carrasquillo that the investigation into his gruesome murder will be conducted as a hate crime under the territory’s sexual orientation hate crimes statute.  The LGBT activist community in Puerto Rico remains skeptical.  Though a law protecting LGBT people has been on the books for years, local prosecutors have been unwilling to use the hate crimes provision in any LGBT-related cases up to this point.  If any murder qualifies as a bias-motivated anti-LGBT crime, the November 13, 2009 killing of López Mercado surely does.  Matos confessed shortly after his arrest that he carried out the crime in a homophobic rage because of an encounter with a gay man in his youth, setting the stage for doubts to be sewn about his mental state at the time of the murder.  Matos allegedly beheaded his 19-year-old victim, severed his arms and legs from his torso, and attempted to burn the body, which was found dumped by the side of a road in rural Cayey.  He is charged with first-degree murder for the slaying, and is being held on $4 million bail.

December 10, 2009 Posted by | anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Blame the victim, Decapitation and dismemberment, gay men, gay panic defense, gay teens, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, immolation, Latino and Latina Americans, Law and Order, Legislation, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Puerto Rico, Social Justice Advocacy, stabbings, Torture and Mutilation | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Puerto Rican Gay Teen’s Confessed Murderer Sent for Psychological Testing

Neo-Nazi’s Trial Begins for Murdering Boy He Thought Was Gay

Kristofer King, murdered at 17

New Port Richey, FL – John Allen Ditulio, Jr., 23, is on trial in Pasco County Florida for the 2006 stabbing murder of a 17-year-old boy he thought was gay.  Kristofer King, the victim, was a houseguest of Patricia Wells and her son, Brandon Wininger, on the night of March 23, 2006 when Ditulio, a member of the American Nazis, allegedly invaded the Wells home angered by her relationship with an African American man and by the fact that her son was gay.  At midnight, according to Crime News 2000, a man wearing a military-style gas mask broke into the Griffin Park area trailer and attacked Wells, who was dozing on a futon.  The assailant slashed Wells in the face and hands, and then turned his murderous attentions to King, who had been on a computer in another room, and tried to escape from the home.  He stabbed King repeatedly, and then fled the scene.  Patricia Wells remembered that the boy cried out in the midst of the attack, “Why are you doing this to me?”  King died from blood loss the next day at an area hospital.  Charlene King, the victim’s mother, believes that her son’s murder was a case of mistaken identity.  She told the St. Petersburg Times that the attacker must have thought Kristofer King was Wininger, whom the Neo-Nazi hated because he was gay.  “What makes it so awful for being killed by someone like that is that Kris never judged anyone by their skin color or sexual preference,” the grieving mother said.  “If you were his friend, you were his friend. They thought it was Brandon because Brandon is gay.  What kind of a man would do this?  Even if Kris had been Brandon, how can you just take a young man’s life?”  The King family acknowledged that Kristofer and Brandon were good friends, and that their son would sometimes stay overnight at his friend’s trailer.  Wininger was away from his home on the night of the attack.  Wells and Wininger had trouble with the “Teak Street Nazis” before.  Their trailer home was adjacent to the swastika-draped Nazi compound, and on at least one occasion members of the hate group had tried to break into their home.  They had shouted racial and anti-gay epithets at them for weeks before the double stabbing.  The St. Petersburg Times also reports that Guy King, the murder victim’s father, received a Christmas card from Ditulio, decorated with a tombstone drawn on the front that read, “Rest In Peace. Here Lies Dead Faggot.”  The message inside: “I hope your Christmas is full of memories of your dead gay son. Merry f—— Christmas.”  The card was signed, “Syn,” Ditulio’s nickname among the Nazis, according to Pasco County prosecutors.  Authorities are treating the case as a hate crime as well as murder and assault.  Ditulio, who was 20 at the time of the attack, is charged with first degree murder and first degree attempted murder.  If convicted, he may face the death penalty.  The year following his arrest and imprisonment pending the trial, Ditulio attempted to escape, using hacksaw blades and a makeshift rope made of bed sheets. He was stymied by a tangle of pipes as he tried to saw his way out of his cell through a metal toilet, according to the Tampa Tribune.  Defense attorneys have tried to sew doubt about the identity of the attacker, as well as attempting to play up the mistaken identity aspect of the case in order to lessen their client’s liability.  They successfully argued to the judge that Ditulio’s offensive tattoos covering his face and neck, which he acquired while in prison awaiting trial, would prejudice the jury against their client.  The judge, in a controversial ruling, ordered that a makeup artist would be hired for ten days at the rate of up to $125 a day to cover Ditulio’s tattoos.  Before and after photos of Ditulio may be seen below, courtesy of the local Fox affliliate.  

December 9, 2009 Posted by | African Americans, Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Florida, gay men, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, home-invasion, Law and Order, Mistaken as LGBT, Neo-Nazis and White Supremacy, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slurs and epithets, stabbings | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

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

Slain LGBT Icon Harvey Milk Inducted into California Hall of Fame

The Associated Press reports that Harvey Milk was inducted on Tuesday into the California Hall of Fame, along with 12 other notables from the Golden State.  Thirty-one years after Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by former San Francisco City Supervisor Dan White, Milk will be featured for the next year in the California Hall of Fame section of the California Museum in Sacramento.  Milk, who had served as a San Franciso City Supervisor for 11 months, was 48 at the time of his murder.  According to the Bay Area Reporter, Milk’s nephew, Stuart Milk, received the commendatory Spirit of California medal marking his uncle’s induction from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver.  Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel, read the citation.  Interviewed at the induction event, former campaign manager for Milk’s historic 1977 election campaign, Ann Kronenburg, called the honor, “definitely long past due.”  Smiling, she told reporters, “Harvey’s up there right now dancing.”  When asked about the importance of Harvey Milk to the LGBT community of California, Kronenburg quickly corrected the reporter, “To the world’s. Since the movie [Milk] came out I have continually received letters from around the world about what Harvey’s story means,” she explained. “And what it means is there’s hope. There’s so much hope.”  Milk’s Hall of Fame exhibit features a recently-opened urn containing a lock of his hair, a letter in his handwriting, a campaign button, and a rainbow flag. The memorabilia were held by the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. until transported back to California for the exhibit.  Some 50,000 school children are expected to visit the exhibition during the coming year.  Though there were 12 other inductees honored at the ceremony, the greatest interest by the public and the press was clearly focused on the choice of Milk.  Protesters criticized the selection of the famed gay-rights pioneer for the Hall of Fame.  A group from San Leandro’s American Warrior Evangelical Ministry marched outside the ceremony venue carrying signs reading, “Harvey Milk was a pervert.”  The Bay Area Reporter quotes one of the demonstrators, Ken Arras, as saying, “We just believe that [Milk] is undeserving of this honor.  He may have been a nice guy outside of his immoral lifestyle, but what has he done? This award is all about his lifestyle. It’s just about him being a homosexual.”  Another of the San Leandro protestors, Don Grundmann, admitted that Milk’s murder was “a fantastic tragedy,” but argued that an assassination is insufficient reason for public recognition, referring to both the Hall of Fame induction and to Harvey Milk Day, which he claimed was a direct assault on children.  Grundmann went to to assert that no LGBT person should ever be inducted in the state’s Hall of Fame since “it would lead to acceptance” of immorality by impressionable youth.  Earlier in the year, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill sponsored by San Francisco’s openly-gay State Senator, Mark Leno, creating May 22 “Harvey Milk Day,” a day of special significance throughout California.  The Hall of Fame’s Class of 2009 included other stellar Californians, such as football coaching legend, John Madden, actor Carol Burnett, Chuck Yeager, the first test pilot to break the sound barrier, filmmaker George Lucas, and author Danielle Steele.

December 3, 2009 Posted by | anti-LGBT hate crime murder, California, gay men, gun violence, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Legislation, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Politics, Popular Culture, Protests and Demonstrations, Remembrances | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Slain LGBT Icon Harvey Milk Inducted into California Hall of Fame

Ryan Skipper’s Killer Sentenced to 2 Life Terms

William "Bill Bill" Brown at sentencing, Ledger photo

Bartow, Florida – Circuit Judge Michael Hunter sentenced William “Bill Bill” Brown, 23, to life without parole for first-degree murder, and gave him a second life sentence for armed robbery with a deadly weapon for his part in the horrific murder of Ryan Keith Skipper in March 2007, according to The Ledger.  The judge also imposed a 15-year sentence for arson, and an additional five years for tampering with evidence.  Eye witnesses in the courtroom say that Brown smiled ruefully as his fingerprints were taken prior to jailing him for the rest of his life.  Ryan Keith Skipper’s stabbed and slashed body was found on a lonely roadside in Wahneta, Florida at approximately 1 a.m. on March 14, 2007.  The Polk County Medical Examiner reported to the court that Skipper had been cut and stabbed a total of 19 times, and died of blood loss at the scene.  Police later discovered Skipper’s powder blue Chevrolet Aveo partially burned at at boat ramp on Lake Pansy.  Brown admitted to investigators that he was in Skipper’s car on the day of the murder, but claimed that he “blacked out” at the time of the attack, and couldn’t remember anything about it.  Brown and Joseph “Smiley” Bearden were arrested and charged with the murder by Polk County Sheriff’s Officers.  Bearden was sentenced to life without parole for his role in Skipper’s murder earlier this year.  Pat Mulder told Ledger reporters that she was relieved that the trial and sentencing were finally over, but that Brown probably will never know the gravity of what he did to her and the family. “He stole my heart when he killed my son,” she said.  The prosecutors in the case contended that the killing was a hate crime because the two men targeted Skipper particularly for his sexual orientation, believing young gay men to be easy marks.  Witnesses during Bearden’s trial testified that the assailants believed they were doing the world a service by ridding the world of another “faggot.”  Though the prosecution never formally charged Brown or Bearden with an anti-gay hate crime, opting instead for a capital murder case and the death penalty, Skipper’s parents urged that the death penalty be waived so that the trials could proceed.  The Mulders and Ryan’s elder brother, Damian, have gone on to become the most persuasive advocates for LGBT equality in Florida, and among the most respected social justice advocates in the nation.

December 2, 2009 Posted by | Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Florida, gay men, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, stabbings | , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Ryan Skipper’s Killer Sentenced to 2 Life Terms

Sir Ian McKellen Reveals He Was Bullied For Being Gay in School

In a report posted by The Advocate, two-time Academy award nominee, Sir Ian McKellen, told school children at a drama workshop that he was bullied for being gay as a schoolboy.  Anti-LGBT bullying in schools in the United States alone affects 9 out ten LGBT teens, all to often leading to depression, dropping out of school, or suicide, according to a recent GLSEN report.  Christopher Mangum, writing for The Advocate, quotes McKellen, “Being gay was a topic that was never mentioned when I was your age. We had not really invented the word gay — at school I used to be called Oscar, after Oscar Wilde,” the famed actor told an audience of 200 students at Severn Vale School in Quedgeley, England this past weekend. “So to come back to school for the first time in 50 years and see this is heartening, to see that as a nation we have so rapidly grown up.”  After an hour in a drama workshop, the 70-year-old said he was impressed with the play – which was performed in front of students from other schools – and was proud of the students for tackling issues around homophobic bullying in schools.  Coming out was a difficult process for everyone in Great Britain in his younger years, McKellen told the eager school children.  “When I was 29 it was illegal for me to make love,” he said.  “I had a boyfriend and we slept together but the law said that we should be in prison. It was very hard to walk out in the street and say to him don’t touch me or brush your hand against mine, there may be a police man around the corner.”  Speaking candidly at another recent venue, Sir Ian said, “The word ‘gay’ has become used as a derogatory term and this is something which education can help to resolve. Either that or we choose another word to describe ourselves. I rather like another G word – ‘glorious.'”  He reflected further on his own coming out process: “People come to know themselves at different times. I was 49 before I understood who I was. I think that if the world had been different when I was young, then I might have had the courage to come out sooner.”  According to his official website, Sir Ian came out in 1988 on a BBC Radio program criticizing the Thatcher government for repressive policies against LGBT people.  He became a courageous LGBT advocate, co-founding “Stonewall,” an organization that works for full LGBT justice and equality in the UK and around the world.

November 30, 2009 Posted by | Bullying in schools, gay men, Hate Crime Statistics, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy | , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Sir Ian McKellen Reveals He Was Bullied For Being Gay in School

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

Gay Man Loses 14-Month Battle for Life After Possible Hate Attack

Baltimore, Maryland – Glen H. Footman, 52, died November 9 in the University of Maryland Shock and Trauma Center after what the Bangor Daily News called “a 14-month emotional and courageous battle for life” from gunshot wounds in a possible anti-LGBT hate attack in the Mouth Vernon section of Baltimore.  Footman was shot twice on September 22, 2008 after being seen walking hand-in-hand with his soul-mate and life partner of 12 years, Alejandro Chavarria.  According to Baltimore police, the two gay men were walking shortly after midnight when a young man on a bicycle came up behind them.  Footman turned to speak to the young man while Chavarria walked on ahead.  Chavarria shouted back to his partner, “Come on, let’s go,” when two shots rang out, and Footman fell, wounded to the pavement.  As Chavarria ran to help Footman, the assailant ran from the scene, but then raced back to collect his bike, and then made his getaway.  Police have been treating the case as a possible anti-gay hate crime from the beginning of their investigation.  The Baltimore Sun reports that the victim’s father, H. Rodney Footman of Brewer, Maine spoke to reporters by phone to say that Baltimore police have not been encouraging about ever locating the shooter.  The elder Footman has no doubt that his son was killed because he was gay.  Shortly before the attack, Footman’s father said, a witness overhead the assailant brag, “‘I’m going to kill myself a gay tonight.’ He took off with that intention and he did just that. Police were very up front with us in saying that the chance of this ever being solved is practically nil.”  Glen Footman’s death not only bereaves his relatives and his partner.  Footman was a force for good in the community who will be sorely missed by many.  He was a licensed alcohol and drug abuse counselor in Maine, Rhode Island, and Texas, and held degrees in business administration and pastoral theology.  He counseled youth in Maine and Texas.  He and Alex had moved to Maryland shortly before the shooting, where he was to take up a new job at an insurance company.  He leaves behind two children from a previous marriage, Nicole Leah and Blaine Jonathan. His beloved Alex, who the Bangor Daily News calls Footman’s “sustaining grace during his last challenging year of physical and emotional struggle,” has returned to San Antonio, where he and Glen first met.  Police have not yet ruled Footman’s death a homicide, pending the coroner’s report on whether the injuries sustained in the 2008 shooting were the actual cause of death.

November 28, 2009 Posted by | Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, gay men, gun violence, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino and Latina Americans, Law and Order, Maine, Maryland, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Remembrances, Texas, Unsolved LGBT Crimes | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Gay Man Loses 14-Month Battle for Life After Possible Hate Attack

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