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.”
Drag Queen Murdered in NC
Jimmy McCollough, also known as Imaje Devera
Fayetteville, NC – “Ms. Jimmy,” also known on stage as Imaje Devera was found stabbed to death outside Club Emages, a local gay and lesbian night spot around midnight on April 14, 2009. Jimmy McCollough, 34, was a talented female impersonator who struggled to make ends meet in the recession economy. Police are investigating the murder as a hate crime, but since North Carolina does not have hate crime legislation addressing LGBT hate crime violence, and neither does the federal government, resources to investigate and prosecute such a crime are slim in the Old North State.
Transgender community leader Janice Covington, wrote in response to Ms. Jimmy’s murder: “This morning, April 14, 2009, the murdered body of Image Devereux (Ms. Jimmy) was found on Joseph Street behind the old Club Spektrum in Fayetteville, N.C. She was a local Drag Queen who many of us knew as a friend. She will be missed but not forgotten. My prayers go out to her family.”
An underreported aspect of this story is the high degree of anti-LGBT prejudice in hiring practices in Fayetteville and around the nation. The proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, now transgender inclusive, is necessary to confront and begin to rectify the desperate situation so many trans and gender-non-conforming men find themselves in today. Southerners On New Ground (SONG), founded by Black and White lesbians in order to advance Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer multi-racial, multi-issued education, commented on Ms. Jimmy’s death: “Mr. McCollough was presumably simply working the streets on the night he was murdered, trying to pay his bills. Like too many in our communities, he was a gender non-conforming person of color in the South, known to be a sex worker, and a presence in the community. SONG continues to be committed to working for a day when folks like Mr. McCollough are not victims of violence, and when lives and livelihoods such as his as seen as just as important and precious as any other life.”
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.
Homophobia Kills Straight People, Too
Eric Mohat, 17, committed suicide after merciless homophobic bullying at school. He was straight.
Mentor, OH: The parents of a 17-year-old straight son who was bullied in school so relentlessly for being homosexual that he killed himself filed suit in federal court on March 27, 2009 against the school system and officials who witnessed the name-calling, hitting, and pushing, but did nothing to protect the boy. Eric Mohat, whose nickname was “Twiggy,” was a tall, skinny boy who loved to play the piano, had a wonky sense of humor, and loved the theatre. The harassment proved too much to bear. A bully shouted at him in class on March 29, 2007, “Why don’t you go home and shoot yourself! No one will miss you!” Eric did.
Eric strikes a pose for the Yearbook
He went home, took out his father’s legally registered handgun, locked himself in the room, and shot himself in the head. His parents, William and Janis Mohat of Mentor, Ohio, allege that the suicides of three other youths at Mentor Senior High School, that occurred shortly after their son’s death, are also due to excessive bullying. Though the Mohats are seeking no punitive damages in their suit, they insist that the school system acknowledge the problem of homophobic bullying and address it effectively. School officials defend the operation of the 2,900 student school in an eastern exuburb of Cleveland, saying that they had already instituted a form of anti-bullying education, and took appropriate steps to address Eric’s fears when he brought them to their attention. Countering, friends of Eric’s attest that teachers and administrators saw what was happening to Eric and others, and in effect turned a blind eye. They say Eric was relentlessly badgered in class, and called “fag,” “homo,” “nancy boy,” and “queer” right in front of his teachers. Most of the bullying took place in a math class where the teacher, who is an athletic coach, failed to protect Eric. Experts on anti-bullying education note that the program the Mentor school is using has questionable results with homophobic jock culture when it is entrenched in a school or community.
Eric's MySpace pic, a gift from his sister, Erin
His older sister Erin, whom Eric called his hero, heard the shot from another room where she was exercising on a treadmill. In a blog, Erin wrote about losing her little brother: “It’s so surreal. I just keep thinking he’ll walk through the front door, bouncy as always, and say, ‘Oh the wound wasn’t that serious, they patched me up just fine.’ But I know better. The coroner has called and asked to use pieces of his heart to save three children’s lives, and his corneas too. The police were there to tell me, yes he was dead. But I knew from the moment I found him. I didn’t want to admit it because I was still hoping that just maybe my mind was playing tricks on me…. but that’s not the case and I knew it the moment I saw all that blood and I saw part of his brain on that floor. I can’t get it out of my head. The image of it all makes me sick but even with my eyes wide open I can see it.” Now Erin, who is 21, is studying to be a school psychologist.
Eric’s dad told ABC reporters, “When you lose a child like this it destroys you in ways you can’t even describe.” He and his wife have opened their hearts and their home to any child contemplating suicide, just so no one will have to believe that she or he is alone and afraid.
The Columbine tragedy in Colorado, and numerous other shootings across the country demonstrate the negative effects of homophobic epithets and name-calling. Recent studies, including those carried out by GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (www.glsen.org), show that youth who are bullied in school have a five to nine times higher incidence of suicide than those who do not suffer it.
Shrine to Eric in Mentor, Ohio, by his friends
Homophobia kills. LGBT folk are the primary targets of violent hate crimes due to homophobia and heterosexism. But as Eric Mohat’s story illustrates, the toll of murder and suicide is mounting for straight youth, too. When will the madness stop? Not until good people get involved and clamor for anti-bullying laws and hate crimes statutes.
Just days before the suicide, Eric Mohat told his mother, “I get picked on every day and I’ve got a whole nine weeks left. I can’t do this anymore.”
“We never had a chance to help him,” she said, choking back tears.
“It shouldn’t require legal action to get the school system to pay more attention to bullying than they do to their sports programs,” said his father. “How many suicides is enough?”
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.
Remembering Ryan Keith Skipper
Ryan Keith Skipper
April 28, 1981 – March 14, 2007
Wahneta, Florida
This is the second anniversary of Ryan’s murder. In the deep of night, as March 13 bled into March 14, two attackers savaged him as he sat in his car. The Polk Country Associate Medical Examiner testified that his autopsy revealed 19 stab and slash wounds, probably from two knives. The killing stroke was a 3.5-inch-deep cut into his neck, severing his jugular.
Though nothing can bring Ryan back to his family and friends, Joseph Eli “Smiley” Bearden, now 23, was found guilty on all counts. He is now serving a life sentence for Ryan’s murder. William David “Bill Bill” Brown, Jr., now 22, will stand trial for first degree murder in October of this year.
Sheriff Grady Judd has not yet apologized for filling the airwaves with misinformation about Ryan’s life, his character, and the events on the night of the murder. Every allegation he repeated to the press has been disproven. Judd should have been drummed out of office. Instead, he was re-elected by the citizens of Polk County this past November.
Ryan’s life is cherished, and his memory is a powerful force for winning equality for LGBT Americans. The manner of his death is a strong incentive for all people of good conscience to urge Congress and the President to enact the Matthew Shepard Act and the Transgender inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act into law, as well as abolish the military’s infamous Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.
The Year in Review
As 2008 draws to a close, hate crime statistics from 2007 are finally coming into clearer focus. Both the FBI and various anti-violence programs are verifying hate crime increases perpetrated against the LGBT community-at-large. Sadly, the findings from 2007 have been corroborated by ongoing violent acts in 2008.
FBI Hate Crimes Statistics for 2007: Sexual-orientation bias related crimes are up 18%.* National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs disputes these statistics, claiming a 24% increase, at least. The official report says that in 2007, law enforcement agencies reported 1,460 hate crime offenses based on sexual-orientation bias to the FBI. Of these offenses:
- 59.2 percent were classified as anti-male homosexual bias.
- 24.8 percent were reported as anti-homosexual bias.
- 12.6 percent were prompted by an anti-female homosexual bias.
- 1.8 percent were the result of an anti-heterosexual bias.
- 1.6 percent were classified as anti-bisexual bias.
(*Note: Anti-transgender incidents are not reported in these statistics, since law-enforcement is not required by law to report them.)
Clarence Patton, Executive Director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project (NYAVP), noted the “dramatic increase in the number of anti-lesbian, gay and bisexual incidents reported—though the overall number of reports captured by the FBI rose only 8%, the number of reports impacting our communities rose at more than twice that rate.”
The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), a coalition of 30 member programs including the NYAVP, reported that gay bashing incidents actually rose 24% compared to 2006. 2007 also had the third-highest murder rate in a decade, more than doubling from 10 in 2006 to 21 in 2007.
Even these statistics hardly give the picture of the crisis of violence against LGBT people all across the United States. The true number of incidents perpetrated against queer folk is probably much higher, as Avy Skolnik, national programs co-ordinator of the NCAVP, reported:
“We know that the 2,430 people who called on our organizations in 2007 are only a small fraction of the actual number of LGBT people who experienced bias-motivated violence. Anecdotally, we constantly hear stories of LGBT people surviving abuse—sometimes multiple attacks per day when that violence comes from a fellow student, a neighbor, a co-worker, a landlord, or a boss.”
Richard Hernandez, butchered in his apartment bathroom
Dallas, Texas, boasting one of the largest LGBT populations in the country, saw LGBT people taking to the streets in protest of the alarming number of attacks. Two high-profile murders and several brutal assaults, including the “Silence of the Lambs style” dismemberment of gay man, Richard Hernandez, a 34-year-old citizen of Dallas, sparked street protests from United Community Against Gay Hate Crime to draw the attention of the public to the plight of LGBT citizens.
Gay Apartheid
Behind each number in these statistics are real people: victims, family, friends, bereaved lovers. This is the human cost of Gay Apartheid. The real target of these atrocities, however, is the idea of America, a country where all people may pursue their lives without fear of intimidation or violence. Until American laws and the attitudes behind them change to reflect the inclusion of all people in the constitutional rights and privileges afforded some, then this nation must be brought to face so-called “legal” acts of apartheid against the LGBT community.
Forty years after the Stonewall Uprising in New York, universally recognized as the birth of the LGBT Rights Movement, 29 states have constitutional amendments passed for the sole purpose of depriving LGBT citizens the same rights as heterosexuals. States have enacted bans against gay parenting and adoption. Not only has the Federal Government passed the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA), and instituted the oppressive “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy for the U.S. Military, but 15 states have barred same-sex marriage, and 18 states have legislation limiting domestic partnerships and civil unions. The passage of Proposition 8 in California, repealing the right to marry given to its citizens earlier in the year, is just the latest act of apartheid in this country. Violence is following the law, not the other way around.
The definition of Apartheid is “a system of laws applied to one category of citizens in order to isolate them and keep them from having privileges and opportunities given to all others,” according to elder LGBT statesman, Herb Hamsher, writing for the Huffington Post. The Unfinished Lives Project cannot agree with Hamsher more when he says, “Our role is to hold a mirror up to the country and no longer allow it to shift the focus away from what we have become. We have become a nation increasingly devoted to an encroaching system of apartheid for a designated category of its citizens.”
When the tyranny of the majority goes unchecked, and the apartheid system apes the bias against LGBT people in communities and religious institutions, the American ideal of the protection of the minority from the excesses of their neighbors is exposed as a fantasy. An Apartheid America is not the nation of the free or the brave. Hate Crime murders and other violent crimes against LGBT people are hundreds and thousands of mirrors held up to the nation. We must continue to stand up, hold up these brutally frank mirrors to the disfigurement of America until our fellow citizens repudiate the travesty of the law these hate crime statistics represent.
Special Comment on the Proposition 8 Protest Movement: “Now is Our Time”
by Stephen V. Sprinkle
One step too far: that is the step opponents of civil rights for LGBT people, the LDS Church and the Knights of Columbus, took in their all-out effort to repeal same-sex marriage in California. I do not contest the freedom of church organizations to voice their opinions about court decisions in America. But the desperate over-reach of Mormons and Roman Catholics to strip same-sex couples of the right of civil marriage the California Supreme Court had vouchsafed to them has awakened millions of LGBT people and allies to the power of a movement whose time has come. Pouring millions of church dollars and thousands of radio/TV advertisements into the struggle over Prop 8 has rebounded upon those who briefly celebrated beating back the high court’s decision on same-sex marriage. The agents of heterosexist theocracy may have won a single battle at the ballot box, but in doing so they have set in motion a war for public opinion they cannot win.
Our opponents managed one thing by their desperation and arrogance: they have galvanized the grassroots power of the millions of LGBT folk and allies who surged to the polls on November 4 to elect Barack Obama president. With the internet as the vehicle for equality, 300 protest events sprang up in less than twelve days. No other civil rights movement in American history has been launched in cyberspace before, and as the presidential campaign of 2008 demonstrated, the internet has vast potential to rally millions and to fund a national movement. As a witness to the No On 8 Protest at the Austin, Texas Town Hall, I can report the zeal and determination of 3,000 mostly first-time protesters to seize this time as our time, the long-deferred time for a true LGBT Civil Rights moment. As a marcher myself, I can testify to the thrill of taking it to the streets as a 50-something gay man in a new way. I was too closeted and too far removed from the Stonewall Uprising of 1969 to take to the streets then. But this is today, and Prop 8, no matter what LGBT people may privately think of marriage for ourselves, is a thumb in our eye. Myriads of young Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Transgender people built up their electoral muscle in Obama Pride, and now are ready to infuse new life, energy and possibility into the struggle for sexual and gender expression equality. The rally organizers did a fine job at the Austin Town Hall Plaza for the thousands who came out. All the usual advocacy groups were there, lending leadership and direction to the surging crowds of neophytes straining at the bit to do their part for justice. But closing the proceedings and urging protesters to sign up on contact lists or to buy tee shirts could not shut off the electricity generated by restless youth. When a movement goes viral, it cannot be shut down with the flip of a switch.
Perhaps the organizers of the Austin No On 8 Protest tried to get a march permit, but couldn’t. Whatever the story, hundreds of fired up queers and allies took their signs and passion into the streets, and marched up to the Texas State Capital, where we demonstrated outside the gates in the shadow of the tallest governmental dome in America. “What do we want?” “Equality!” “When do we want it?” “Now!” ricocheted up and down Austin streets as dozens of cars and pickups sped by blaring horns and shouting encouragement. The citizens of Austin stepped back, some smiling, some scowling at the surging rainbow line marching up Congress Avenue. Two descriptors came to my mind as I marched along chanting with the others: Power and Peace. This was no flash-in-the pan afternoon protest, no lark by first-timers seeking to get their pictures in the paper. Others have seized their moments: the anti-war movement, African Americans, the Moral Majority, women. But this has the feel of our time, the time when the issue of same-sex wedlock changed from a political hot potato into a viral movement elevating marriage to the status of a civil right for all Americans.
There are serious problems to work out. Before the rift with people of color tears any further, African Americans and Latinas/Latinos must be appealed to directly. LGBT people and straight people of color have a stake in the fight for justice together, not apart, and LGBT people of color must lead white queer folk to avoid driving a wedge between natural allies and us. That is where LGBT people of faith and progressive religious leaders have a major role to play by giving a faith rationale for the marriage equality movement. One of the lessons of the defeat in California is that when church bigotry waves crosses and distorts the issues for the voting public, the most potent antidote is the public witness of queer and progressive faith leaders wearing all their ecclesiastical regalia. God must not be hijacked any longer by the radical right in the fight for equality. Further, from what I saw and heard, LGBT rallies need media savvy and speakers need coaching on how to call out the passion and motivation that will translate into effective action for change. It was clear that we haven’t learned how to do this ‘thing,’ yet. But we must learn how, and quickly, if we are to ride the tide of commitment building in our queer communities.
My work on LGBT hate crimes murder victims teaches me that our movement already has its martyrs. I cannot help thinking of Harvey Milk, wondering if after 30 years since his assassination in San Francisco we have finally become ready to realize his vision and to vindicate his death and the deaths of so many hundreds of others. As we march and protest, their stories can give us the drive to confront a society yet unwilling to see us as equals. Never again must LGBT people stay silent when some of us are killed for simply being who we are. And never again may we sit idle on the sidelines while others struggle to win our freedom and equality. I saw and felt a justice movement building in the capital of the Lone Star State this past Saturday. As one sign in the Austin No on 8 Protest proclaimed, “Our Love Will Outlast Their H8!” We who believe in justice cannot rest! We who believe in justice cannot rest until it comes!
Stephen V. Sprinkle
Director
The Unfinished Lives Project
Two elderly gay men found slain in their Indiana home
An EDGE Boston article describes circumstances surrounding the deaths of two elderly gay men who shared a home in southwest Indianapolis. According to the article, “70-year-old Milton Lindgren and 73-year-old Eric Hendricks had been harassed prior to their deaths… with their phone and cable lines having been cut and a note containing an anti-gay epithet having been left on their door.”
The bodies were discovered by friends, Michael Brown and Kevin Tetrick, who had not heard from Lindgren or Hendricks for more than a week.
A WRTV Channel 6 report says police would not reveal how the two elderly men were killed or how long their bodies had been inside the home, only that their deaths came by “violent means.” An article in the IndyStar elaborates, saying the couple’s friends found an open window at the rear of the house and detected a strong smell coming from inside. Climbing through the window, one of the friends found Lindgren’s blood-covered body in one bedroom and Hendricks’ in another.
The WRTV report adds, “Police reports show that the men had their phone and cable lines cut twice in the past few months, and that anti-gay statements were posted on their front door. Investigators said that while they do believe the vandalism was related to Lindgren and Hendricks being gay, that they didn’t know if their killings were.”
Patrick Beard, another friend of the slain couple, said, “I firmly believe it was definitely a hate crime. Milt was 70 and his partner was 73 and to go into someone’s home and do something like that, it’s just too coincidental.” Beard’s son, Lee, added, “I’m not a genius, but if someone’s being harassed like that and fagot gets stamped on their door on a piece of paper, it’s not that hard to connect the dots two months later that these two people are brutally killed in their home.”
Hendricks, who was ill at the time he was attacked, had been confined to a wheelchair.
Additional information about this story, including commentary about Indiana’s hate crime laws, can be found at Advance Indiana.
Update: Police are now seeking Michael Brown, one of the friends who was at Hendricks’s and Lindgren’s murder site when police were originally called to investigate. “Mr. Brown was at the scene at the time officers were called to investigate what happened at the house,” said Indianapolis police Sgt. Paul Thompson. “He was one of the two individuals inside that stated the two individuals inside had not been seen or heard from in a while. Investigators did interview him initially, however, they have reason to interview him again.” Source: A report filed by WRTV Channel 6 in Indianapolis.
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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Unfinished Lives 
Bullfrog in the Kettle: On Not Being Lulled into a False Sense of Security About Anti-LGBT Violence
How do you boil a bullfrog? Don’t try to plop it in a steaming kettle on the stove. Ease it into a nice warm bath in the pot, and let it swim around until it drops its guard. Nudge up the heat nice and slow. Caught unawares, the frog won’t wake up to its danger until it is too late and the water is about to boil.
Larry King Cover in The Advocate magazine
Last year saw a rash of murders of young, feminine-presenting men about this time. In January, Adophus Simmons of North Charleston, South Carolina was shot to death while carrying his trash out to the dumpster. In February, just after Valentine’s Day, Larry King was shot in the back of the head in his middle school computer class by his classmate in Oxnard, California. Then, near the end of February, Simmie Williams, Jr. was shot down in the street in Fort Lauderdale, Florida by two still-unapprehended murders. Simmons was 18, King was 15, and Williams was 17.
Simmie Williams' Mother Mourns his death
It took some weeks for the LGBT press to connect the dots and cry out that young, gender non-conforming men, especially young men of color, were in the crosshairs of deadly prejudice in the United States. King’s murder drew a cover story in The Advocate, and then the mainstream press picked up the theme with its flawed cover in Newsweek. The nation shrugged off the murders of the other two boys. Now, things have gone strangely silent about the morphing of murder against LGBT people, with minimal interest in the new outbreak of violence against African American transwomen in Memphis, Tennessee. Queer folk are still being killed, but in the glow of President Obama’s first 100 Days, with all eyes turned to the beautiful First Couple and the stumbling U.S. economy, even the LGBT press is falling to sleep again, lulling the LGBT population who are still at risk everywhere into a false sense of security. The bullfrog is doing the backstroke in the kettle, and the heat is rising oh-so-slowly.
Joan Crawford, LGBT Icon, in Johnny Guitar
Just like queer folk used to sit through whole tiresome movies like Johnny Guitar just to see Joan Crawford descend the stairs wearing a butch shirt waving a gun, the LGBT and progressive press are hanging onto every hint of “gay” in President Obama’s speeches and press releases. He said “gay and lesbian” in Chicago on Election Night! He didn’t mention us in the Inaugural Address at all, but has our issues on the White House web site! His team invited Rick Warren (who opposes us 100%) to pray, but Joseph Lowery (who kinda likes us), too! The Inaugural Committee chose Bishop Gene Robinson to pray at the Lincoln Memorial (but then botched its broadcast, and somebody cut off his mic), and at the last minute invited him to the platform for the Inauguration! Please!
Here is what we know for sure:
1) Queer folk are still being killed and attacked in heightened numbers throughout the United States, especially in the Heartland of the Upper Midwest, the Left Coast, and the South, as NCAVP and FBI statistics demonstrate.
2) Even the presumption that someone is gay is deadly, as was the case of José O. Sucuzhañay, a straight man attacked while walking arm-in-arm with his brother in Brooklyn just before Christmas.
3) Transgender women and men, especially if they are of color, are dying in our streets in alarming numbers, as the Memphis attacks testify.
4) A gay man’s life is worth less than an animal’s in some states, as the imminent early release of Sean William Kennedy’s convicted murderer shows in Greenville, South Carolina.
5) Silence-of-the-Lambs style murders apparently cannot shake urban governments awake to the peril of their LGBT citizens, as the gruesome dismemberment of Richard Hernandez and the subsequent veil of silence surrounding it in Dallas, TX points out.
6) Most LGBT people would rather not read about this right now, with Spring Break coming up, and Easter, and the next Circuit Party, and all.
Who wouldn’t rather ignore the reality of violence and neglect that makes LGBT jobs, loves and our very lives so fragile in March 2009, the Obama Administration notwithstanding? Please don’t “let Barack do it” and abdicate responsibility for acting for and end to anti-LGBT violence in this country. Barack Obama needs all of us who feel the heat to make him keep his promises to enact the Matthew Shepard Act, ENDA, and to repeal DADT.
Don’t be fooled. Don’t be lulled. The kettle is on to boil.
~ Stephen V. Sprinkle, Director
The Unfinished Lives Project
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March 11, 2009 Posted by unfinishedlives | African Americans, Anglo Americans, gay men, gun violence, harassment, Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Legislation, Mistaken as LGBT, Politics, Racism, School and church shootings, Special Comments | Comments Off on Bullfrog in the Kettle: On Not Being Lulled into a False Sense of Security About Anti-LGBT Violence