Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Miami Beach Police Disciplined for False Charges Against Gay Tourist Who Turned Them In For Beating

Flamingo Park Area of Miami Beach

Miami Beach, FL – “What is happening in Miami Beach?” —  Miami Herald reader Jeffrey Garcia questioned Miami Beach Police Chief  Carlos Noriega after reports that two MBPD officers falsely charged a gay tourist.  The officers were apparently unaware that the tourist was speaking on his cellphone to the 911 line to report them for beating a man on the street.  The large majority of the abusive arrest, shouts by the officers of anti-gay epithets, and their physical assault on gay tourist Harold Strickland were all recorded for the world to hear.  Once they realized the tourist was reporting them, they allegedly made up charges against him that have now been dropped. Under pressure from the ACLU of Florida, both MBPD Officers Frankly Forte and Elliot Hazzi have been put on desk duty while the investigation against them proceeds.  The Chief’s assurances of good relations with the Miami Beach LGBT community to the contrary, a flurry of reports are emerging that Miami, Miami Beach, South Beach, and other Dade County locales once considered gay Meccas are no longer safe for queer folk.  The made up charges against Mr. Strickland are the most recent example.  According to Miami Herald reports, Mr. Strickland observed two men beating a person at about 1 a.m. on March 13, 2009 in the Flamingo Park area of Miami Beach.  As Steve Rothaus of the Herald reports, “Strickland called 911 when he saw a man being beaten by two men just outside the park. ‘I saw a guy running and then I saw two, what looked like undercover cops running. And they pushed this guy down on the ground, the one cop did, and the other cop came up as if he was kicking a football … and kicked the guy in the head,” Strickland told a dispatcher during a recorded phone call to 911.”  Rothaus continues his report, “For nearly five minutes, he talked to the dispatcher, who encouraged him to get closer for more detail ‘if it doesn’t put you in any danger.’ A few seconds later, Strickland told the dispatcher: “Now they’re coming after me!””  The officers, Forte and Hazzi, demanded to know what Mr. Strickland was doing.  According to a spokesperson for the ACLU,they then grabbed his cellphone away from him and said, “We know what you’re doing here. We’re sick of all the f—ing fags in the neighborhood.”  Pushing him to the ground, they bound Mr. Strickland’s hands and proceeded to kick and beat him, hurling anti-gay slurs at him.  The ACLU report continues, “While Strickland was on the ground, the officers continued to spew anti-gay epithets. They called him a ‘f—ing fag’ and told him he was going to ‘get it good in jail.”’  Though Mr. Strickland tried to tell the officers about his call to 911, they would not listen.  They arrested him on prowling-and-loitering charges.  A half hour later, Officer Forte in his arrest report charged Mr. Strickland with breaking into six cars in the area.  In a hearing the next morning, a judge advised Mr. Strickland that he would get out of jail quicker if he would plead guilty to misdemeanor charges.  He did, but as soon as he was free, he called the ACLU, and changed his plea to not guilty.  The State Attorney General’s Office has dropped all charges against Mr. Strickland, as well as loitering and resisting arrest charges against Mr. Oscar Mendoza, the man Mr. Strickland saw Officers Forte and Hazzi beat near Flamingo Park.  The ACLU has informed the mayor of Miami Beach that they will sue both the offending officers and the city for the incident.  Robert F. Rosenwald Jr., director of the ACLU Florida’s Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender Advocacy Project, told the Herald’s Steve Rothaus, “This is an issue that we have hoped to address for a long time. Miami Beach Police have for a long time harassed gay men around Flamingo Park without probable cause.”

February 16, 2010 Posted by | ACLU, Anglo Americans, Beatings and battery, Blame the victim, Florida, gay men, harassment, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino and Latina Americans, Law and Order, police brutality, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, Stomping and Kicking Violence | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Miami Beach Police Disciplined for False Charges Against Gay Tourist Who Turned Them In For Beating

Phelps Clan to Protest at Gay Fashion Designer’s Funeral: When Religion Turns Preposterous

Topeka, KS – Alexander McQueen, renowed gay fashion designer, died on February 11.  That same day, Fred Phelps, founder and chief screed-monger of Westboro Baptist Church, issued an announcement declaring that WBC would demonstrate at McQueen’s funeral “in religious protest and warning”  (see WBC web site graphic to the left).  Alexander McQueen (1969-2010) was a genius in the fashion industry who was named British Designer of the Year four times, and most recently was honored by Queen Elizabeth II with the rank of CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2003 in recognition of his lifetime achievement.  His obituary in The Times of London notes that he was formerly head designer at Givenchy and then moved into partnership with Gucci.  The shock value of his designs drew attention to his genius, and he counted Rihanna, Björk, and Lady Gaga among his more famous clients.  McQueen’s sexual orientation was no secret throughout the fashion world.  Phelps announced that his church was picketing McQueen’s funeral because he spent his life “teaching rebellion against God” and “committing crimes against God,” presumably by living openly as a talented, notable gay man.  Phelps also used the moment to slam Lady Gaga, calling her a “proud whore” who had “blood on her hands” for wearing McQueen’s creations.  Though Phelps and his independent Baptist Church are engaging in protected speech under the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights, their scramble for contributions and attention goes beyond innocence when they lambaste fallen U.S. servicemembers, synagogues and churches,LGBT people, and celebrity figures under the banner of freedom of expression/freedom of religion.  It would be a mistake to underestimate the effect of this brand of hate speech on the gullible and impressionable–when direct links between hate speech and violence can be established, the full force of law must be brought to bear in order to prevent harm and loss of life. The link between hateful speech and hate crimes continues to be hotly debated, but though Phelps may not be guilty of hate violence yet, he and his followers have made their brand of religion look silly.  Should anyone take him seriously?  Alexander McQueen may rest undisturbed by the rantings of the likes of Phelps.  If anything, Lady Gaga can bask a bit in the knowledge that she has made WBC’s “Anti-Christ List” along with so many other worthy people.  The King James Version of  the Book of James 3:11 reads: Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Phelps twists the goodness of religion turning it into a bitter hate-filled caricature that sours what it touches.  Exponents of Good religion, the Golden Rule/Great Commandment kind, must work overtime to repair the damage to faith communities that Christian jihadists like WBC do in the name of God.

February 14, 2010 Posted by | gay men, hate crimes prevention, Heterosexism and homophobia, Kansas, Law and Order, Protests and Demonstrations, religious hate speech, religious intolerance, Slurs and epithets | , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Arrest Made in Lesbian Stabbing Case

Suzanne Glover on the way to court

Buffalo, NY – From prosecution witness to defendant, all in one day.  That’s how it went down when Buffalo Police arrested Susanna Deanna Glover of Tonawanda last week, charging her with stabbing a lesbian in the eye on New Year’s Eve outside a popular gay bar.  Glover, 21, was taken into custody just hours after testifying against  a man who shot her boyfriend to death right before her eyes in April 2009.  Glover’s testimony helped jurors convict Jerome Thagard, 17, of the murder of Glover’s lover, Stephen Northrup, who was 31 at the time of his death.  After her boyfriend’s murder, Glover moved to Florida where she now lives, returning to Buffalo for the express purpose of testifying against Thagard.  The verdict in the Northrup case was handed down Monday evening.  By that time, Glover was under arrest for the stabbing, which law enforcement authorities are calling a hate crime.   The attack on Lindsay C. Harmon, 29, along with the murder of Christopher Rudow, a 32-year-old gay man, has rocked the Buffalo LGBT community in recent weeks.  Glover allegedly attacked Lindsay Harmon outside Roxy’s, an LGBT nightclub, stabbing her in the left eye while yelling homophobic slurs.  A grand jury will have to make the determination whether the charges against Glover for the attack warrant a hate crime designation, based on their judgment of Glover’s motivation for the attack.  According to WIVB News 4, Glover attempted to hide her face from cameras as she was hustled into  a city courtroom to face a judge.  Harmon also attended the proceeding to get the first glimpse of her attacker since New Year’s, white bandaging prominent on her right eye.  Some vision is returning to Harmon, according to her father, Michael Harmon, who told reporters for News 4 that his daughter still had a long way to go before full health would be restored to her.  “It’s gonna be a long time and some more surgery,” he said. Glover has retained her own attorney, so the trial has been pushed back to later in February.

January 26, 2010 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Florida, gay men, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Law and Order, Lesbian women, New York, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slurs and epithets, stabbings | , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Arrest Made in Lesbian Stabbing Case

Queens Gay Bashers Indicted for Hate Crimes

Defendant Daniel Rodriguez

Queens, NY – Both men charged with the savage assault that left gay New Yorker Jack Price near death in mid-October have been indicted for 14 counts of assault and robbery as a hate crime, as well as possession of stolen property.  Daniel Rodriguez, 21, and Daniel Aleman, 26, both from College Point, Queens, allegedly attacked Jack Price, 49, early in the morning on October 8. The assault, sudden and brutal, lasted for roughly three minutes.  A surveillance camera caught the bashing on tape, a damning piece of evidence the defense will have a hard time explaining away.  According to Gay City News, if convicted, each defendant could receive up to 25 years in prison, with the stipulation that neither of them could be released before 21 years of the sentence had been served.  Police investigators said that the bashing took place 4:30 a.m. on October 8 as Price was leaving a local 24-hour delicatessen.  Rodriguez and Aleman allegedly accosted Price in the deli as he was buying a pack of cigarettes, and then followed him outside to press their attack.  During the beating, Rodriguez allegedly yelled at Price repeatedly, calling him a “faggot.”  After rifling through his pockets, the pair shown on camera left the scene.  Price, before falling into a coma, was able to identify his assailants to police.  Unbeknownst to Rodriguez and Aleman, who allegedly taunted him in Spanish, Price understood the language, and gave details of what he heard to the investigators.  Price lay in the New York Medical Center of Queens for better than three weeks, suffering from a broken jaw, a lacerated spleen, broken ribs, and two collapsed lungs.  Protests against hate violence were organized swiftly, the largest of them comprised of over 500 who demanded justice for Price.  A small contingent of supporters of the defendants staged a counter-protest.  Aleman was arrested in short order in Queens.  Rodriguez fled to Norfolk, Virginia, where he was arrested on October 13.  After his transport back to Queens for arraignment, Rodriguez confessed to NYPD officers that he assaulted Price, and gave the following details of the run-up to the attack, according to WABC News: “According to prosecutors, Rodriguez admitted he and the other suspect Daniel Aleman confronted Price believing he was about to write his phone number on a wall in order to solicit other men. It was that confrontation that led to the beating. Prosecutors also say Rodriguez admitted to yelling anti-gay epithets while beating Price. Rodriguez’s attorney says that his client never confessed and that the NYPD detectives basically put words in his client’s mouth.”  Price counters that he never wrote graffiti on the deli wall, and did nothing to provoke the attack.  Rodriguez’s animus toward Price was clear to investigators who report that Rodriguez admitted to using the anti-gay slurs because “Jack is disgusting.”  Both defendants are being held at Riker’s Island without bail.  Price has substantially recovered from the physical aspects of the beating, but the psychological injuries he sustained will take a lifetime to cope with.  When he woke up from his coma in the hospital, he told relatives that he was “surprised to be alive.”

January 22, 2010 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Blame the victim, gay men, harassment, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino and Latina Americans, Law and Order, New York, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Protests and Demonstrations, Slurs and epithets, Social Justice Advocacy, Stomping and Kicking Violence, Vigils | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Wearing Pink Gets Straight Man Gay Bashed

Kansas City, MO – In a report issued by the Kansas City Police Department, the story of a straight man who wore pink to aid breast cancer charities was gay bashed by men at a Kansas City Chiefs game in October 2009.  The victim, Sean McGarrigle, a father of three, had volunteered to wear pink clothing to draw attention to National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  He was vending pink ribbons, shirts, hats and other items to raise money for the cause, and had been successful at the Chiefs game that day, raising in excess of $900, the most of any volunteer at the stadium.  It was the third quarter when McGarrigle decided to go home after a good day full of pleasant contacts with the fans.  The Kansas City Star reports that as he was leaving Arrowhead Stadium, two men who appeared to be drunk began harassing him because of his clothing which clearly bore the breast cancer logo.  They used homophobic slurs as they badgered him, demanding that he take off his pink hat and shirt because it offended them.  An onlooking fan tried to get the two men to leave McGarrigle alone, but they would not relent.  Finally, McGarrigle turned to confront them, saying, “Listen, I’m doing this to raise money. You guys are giving Kansas City a bad name.”  He turned to down a grassy embankment to his car when he heard footsteps overtaking him.  The two men caught up to McGarrigle, and one of them punched him in the face.  The second man grabbed him in a headlock and threw him to the ground.  Both of them laughed as they kicked him in the ribs.  McGarrigle managed to escape them, he told police, and hid in his car.  His assailants continued to search for him in the rows of autos in the parking lot.  McGarrigle got his car out on the road, only to be pursued by his attackers who raced behind him in their car.  They followed him onto Interstate 435 all the way into Kansas, pulled up even with his car, and shouted slurs at him as they sped down the highway.  McGarrigle slowed down until they passed, and he lost them.  He suffered a bruised face, sore ribs, and an awful fright.  Under other circumstances, the hate attack could have turned out much worse.  KC police report that they have recorded triple the number of hate crimes in their city for 2009, over the same period in 2008.

January 3, 2010 Posted by | Anglo Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Blame the victim, harassment, Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Kansas, Missouri, Mistaken as LGBT, Perpetrators of Hate Crime, Slurs and epithets, Stomping and Kicking Violence | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“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

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

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

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

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