Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Gay Man Gunned Down in His Florida Driveway

Mark Scott HarrissMark Scott Harriss, 30, looked forward to moving to Canada to get married to his fiancé, Ross Salvosa.  Instead, he was shot to death around 8:30 pm in his Delray Beach, Florida driveway on Monday, May 11, 2009.  Was it a hate crime?  He had  multiple gunshot wounds, and there was no evidence of robbery, according to investigators.  Though authorities have not yet made the determination that his murder was a hate crime, friends of Harriss think it was likely.  Professor Earl Fox from the University of Miami School of Medicine knew him well, and the neighborhood where he lived.  Fox noted to the Palm Beach Post that another friend of his who lives in the same area as Harriss had a Nazi swastika painted on her car earlier this year because she is Jewish.  “If somebody is shot multiple times and nobody takes anything, that is just strange,” Fox told reporters.

Police told WPBF television, an ABC affiliate, that Harris was shot 12 times at close range in a manner resembling an “assassination.”  Homophobia is under consideration as a motive for the murder, officers said.

Harriss grew up in Fredericksburg, Texas, in the Hill Country.  He was an enthusiastic water skier, and loved gardening, according to his high school classmate, Theresa Valenzuela, of Austin.  He had moved to Florida in 2007 to take a job with Best Western Motels.  Salvosa, a classical piano student, lived with him until his student visa expired, at which time he returned to his native home in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Harriss was tying up loose ends as quickly as he could in Delray Beach, so that he could find a job in Canada, go to live there in early summer, and marry his beloved.

Now Salvosa is returning to Florida to mourn Harriss and to oversee his memorial service.  Harriss wished to be cremated, and to have his ashes interred back in New Braunfels, Texas, a city between Austin and San Antonio.

Investigations into Harriss’ savage murder continue, and the Delray Police Department vow to follow all leads until the tragic mystery of this killing is resolved.

May 16, 2009 Posted by | Florida, Heterosexism and homophobia, Marriage Equality | , , , , , | Comments Off on Gay Man Gunned Down in His Florida Driveway

Pattern of severe of anti-LGBT violence increases nationwide

stop hate hand

The Hate Crimes Bill has provided an excellent summary of a new report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs showing anti-LGBT violence has been on the rise since the murder of Lawrence “Larry” King in Oxnard, California, at the beginning of this year.

“The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) reports a recent rash of at least 13 brutal and violent hate crimes that have occurred throughout the country on the heels of the murder of 15 year-old Lawrence King in Los Angeles and the brutal beating of Duanna Johnson, both in February of 2008,” says the Hate Crimes Bill’s website. “NCAVP reports that these hate crimes may indicate a frightening trend of increases in both the number and severity of anti-LGBT violence.”

The NCAVP findings come after several anti-LGBT hate crimes, including the police beating of a transgender woman in Memphis, Tennessee; the harassment and beating of a gay man on a New York subway; the murder of a transgender woman in Memphis, Tennessee; the alleged police beating of a gay man in Greeley, Colorado; the beating of a priest in Queens, New York, for protecting a group of LGBT youth living at a shelter for homeless youth; the midnight home-invasion and arson, in Central New York, by a self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi, who targeted a sleeping 65-year-old gay man (the victim was able to flee the home, unhurt); the fatal bludgeoning of 18-year-old Angie Zapata, a transgender Latina woman in Greeley, Colorado; the beating of gay man Jimmy Lee Dean, in Dallas, Texas, whose injuries were so severe that he was in intensive care and could not be interviewed or identified until five days after the crime; the severe injury of a man in upstate New York, whose two assailants beat, kicked, and shouted anti-gay slurs until they had broken ten bones in their victim’s face; the attack against an 18-year-old living in St Helens, in the United Kingdom, who died a week later from his injuries; the (at least partially) anti-gay-motivated shooting rampage in a Knoxville, Tennessee, church that claimed two lives and wounded seven others; the mob-beating and stabbing of a man perceived to be gay in Staten Island, New York; the ongoing and escalating harassment (for nearly 8 years) of a gay male couple living in Cleveland, Ohio, by anti-gay neighbors; and the ongoing and escalating harassment (for nearly 20 years) of a gay male couple living in a rural Pennsylvania town, who have suffered incidents of gunfire, vandalism, stalking, acts of intimidation, and the indifference from local police.

In a grim coincidence, more than one anti-LGBT hate crime has occurred in both Memphis, Tennessee, and Greeley, Colorado, since the beginning of 2008.

Unfinished Lives also offers our own analysis of the significance of anti-LGBT hate-crime statistics in the United States. The NCAVP’s findings and the Hate Crimes Bill’s detailed summary confirm what has been a growing concern for LGBT persons living in the United States.

August 19, 2008 Posted by | Arson, Beatings and battery, Bludgeoning, Colorado, gun violence, harassment, Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes, home-invasion, mob-violence and lynching, multiple homicide, Neo-Nazis and White Supremacy, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, police brutality, religious intolerance, stabbings, stalking, Stomping and Kicking Violence, Tennessee, Texas, vandalism | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Pattern of severe of anti-LGBT violence increases nationwide

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