This is getting ridiculous. Seven. That I know of. SEVEN. Let’s go through these all-too-common anti-gay hate crimes in chronological order.
Update 7/4/09: Thanks to dymsum for pointing out in comments two more hate crimes that I’d missed. I ran across another one this afternoon. This post has been updated with these three attacks, raising the number to ten.
Attacker Wenzola Rountree
We begin on June 19, 2009 at about 1:15am. In New York’s Central Islip, Wenzola Rountree approached three openly gay men on the street and began yelling anti-gay slurs and punching and kicking them. One of the three unidentified victims required nine stitches.
Tonya Jackson, who lives in the neighborhood, said the men fought for about 20 minutes.
“We heard some shouting, some screaming . . . and I came outside and I heard a lot of cussing – ‘Get the hell off me, let me go,’ ” she said. “I heard somebody say ‘Call the police, call the police.’ ”
The two victims were treated at Southside Hospital in Bay Shore and released, police said. The third person was not hurt.
Rountree pleaded not guilty and was held on $50,000 bail Friday at First District Court in Central Islip.
Leslie Mora
On June 19, 2009 Leslie Mora was attacked by two men while walking to her home in Queens, New York. The two men, identified as Trinidad Tapia and Gilberto Ortiz, shouted “maricon” (“faggot” in Spanish) while they beat her with a belt and metal buckle. According to the the TLDEF, the attack left Leslie with multiple injuries, including bruises all over her body, and stitches in her scalp. Police called to the scene found Leslie nearly naked and bleeding on the sidewalk. They also recovered a belt buckle from the assailants that was covered in blood.
Tapia and Ortiz fled when a passerby threatened to call the police, but were apprehended and charged with assault with intent to cause physical injury with a weapon, a felony, and released on their own recognizance. Leslie was treated for her injuries at a local Queens hospital.
From the New York Blade:
The Queens County District Attorney has declined to investigate the attack as a hate crime because current law does not provide protection for gender identity, according to TLDEF. Michael Silverman, the group’s executive director, said in a statement, “While Leslie is a transgender woman, her attackers perceived her to be gay. State law currently classifies it as a hate crime for an individual to target and attack a victim because of the victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation. Leslie’s assault is a hate crime because her attackers perceived her to be gay and targeted her for violence because of that perception. This is as clear a case for prosecution as a hate crime as any we have seen.”
William Crilly and his little wagon
The following day in Nebraska, Human Rights Campaign volunteer Kendra Konrady was marching in Omaha’s gay pride parade when she saw a man with a small rainbow covered wagon. She later found out that his sign said “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ Our Lord.” From The Pitch:
Konrady admits she has little tolerance for religious zealots with a penchant for overstepping their territory. “All of a sudden I hear, ‘The Lord hadeth this, that and the other business,’ ” she says. “But I’m thinking, Kill them with kindness.”
So she threw a few HRC stickers into their wagon — the adhesive still covered. She heard someone say, “You better not do that.” Then one of the Bible-quoting men grabbed her from behind. “He had me in a head lock and I was kind of flailing,” she says. “I’m a pacifist through and through, but this dude just attacked me.”
The crowd quickly responded and the man backed off. Konrady marched up to the next police officer she could find and told him what happened. Two other witnesses confirmed that the man pushed Konrady away from the wagon and put her in a headlock.
The man was William Crilly, a 66-year-old Omaha resident. According to the police report, “The suspect, who stated he was just trying to get them away, was arrested for assault.”
Jason Saunders
On June 23 in Bridgwater, England, Jason Saunders was attacked by five men in his own neighborhood while walking to work. Just as with Leslie Mora, Jason’s attackers shouted abuse, including “queer” and “ginger” at him while they beat him. Jason sustained a broken nose, black eye, and other injuries from the attack. Doctors, concerned because he was drifting in and out of consciousness, transfered him from a local hospital to Musgrove Park Hospital for treatment.
One person has been arrested, but police are still looking for information on the other four. Meanwhile, Jason is still feeling the psychological effects of the attack. According to the Bridgwater Mercury:
He said: “I can’t physically move because I am in so much pain. I’m scared to leave the house and can’t do anything by myself – I can’t even go upstairs in my own home alone.”
His boyfriend, 22-year-old Gary Holman, added: “I tried to get him out of the house on Wednesday, just 100 yards up the road to a friend’s house, but he was scared when someone shut their front door. Then he puked.
“Before, he was a funny, caring and happy man. Now he is a nervous wreck, frightened to go out and can’t be by himself. It has changed him so much.”
Joe Holladay
Four days later, Joe Holladay was in New York on business. Early Saturday morning Joe was outside friend John Jerome’s apartment on the Upper East Side when a group of five or six men attacked him. From the Village Voice:
“It’s very blurry,” he says, “But yeah, they said ‘faggot.’ And the next thing I know I’m in the hospital.”
Jerome, an acting coach, heard the fracas and came downstairs to find his friend “in a pool of blood. I thought he was dead. He wasn’t moving.” Jerome says neighbors in the building told him, and the police, that they saw a group of five or six young white men “with crewcuts, wearing wife-beaters” smoking pot outside the building just before the incident — and, drawn to their window by the noise when the beating occurred, heard the anti-gay epithets and saw the young men pile into a car and drive away.
“They even identified the make and model,” says Holladay. “A gold Subaru older model station wagon. They clearly saw what happened.” Holladay says [the ER doctor] told him his injuries suggest he was hit with a blunt object. “The mark on my forehead looks like it was made by the base of a gun,” he says.
Despite the detailed description of the witnesses (It was later reported that one of them was shouting “Hey faggot what are you looking at” before hitting him with the butt of a gun.), Joe’s attackers have not yet been arrested. He remains in New York for the time being.
Later that day, Adam Schreifels was walking home from the Minneapolis Gay Pride parade when he happened along a gang of boys and teens who began following him down the street for several blocks shouting slurs at him, including “we hate fags” and “fuck gay people”. Fortunately, Justin Grey Day caught the anti-gay exchange on tape.
I hesitated to include this video on the list until I noticed that in addition to shouting insults, which doesn’t really rise to the level of crime, several of the boys were throwing rocks at Adam from only a few feet away. As far as I know, the rock throwers have been neither sought nor found.
The next morning, just blocks away from where Joe Holladay was attacked, another gay man was attacked. Michael Doane was walking his dog on East 84th Street around 3:20 on Sunday morning when a couple of guys jumped him, fractured his skull and broke his nose. The New York Post has more on the story:
In the Sunday attack, a Good Samaritan was walking his dog around 3:30 a.m. when he spotted him, covered in blood and lying motionless on the pavement in front of 313 East 84th Street as two white men laced into him.
The man who came to his aid said, “He was on the ground and they were kicking him in the head over and over. “I said, ‘what the f—- are you doing? Are you crazy get out of here. His [the victim's] face was full of blood I couldn’t tell where it was coming from there was so much,” he said. The two men, who may have had accomplices, ran away.
“He was on the sidewalk and it looked like he was going to go to sleep all curled up. I called the ambulance and he freaked out,” said the witness who had called 911 for an ambulance.
“He was disoriented and didn’t know what was going on. He has as no recollection of what happened. If you see his face you want to break down and cry. He looks like Frankenstein. They broke his head in two places and had to reconstruct his skull.”
Meanwhile, of course, a gay bar in Fort Worth, Texas was being raided. I put this in the ‘hate crime’ category because frankly, it was obviously a hate crime. Since yesterday’s post, we’ve learned that the still-hospitalized victim was indeed drunk, with a blood alcohol level of 0.2, over twice the legal limit for drunk driving. However, a) he was in a bar, b) he had a designated driver, c) the same information tells us that Chad Gibson was nowhere near the benchmark of alcohol poisoning (0.4), which Fort Worth Police Chief Jeff Halstead has claimed as the reason for his massive injuries, and d) HE WAS IN A BAR.
Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin explains at length why the only reasonable explanation for his injuries is from the brutality that was witnessed and photographed by patrons and employees of the Rainbow Lounge.
Attackers Lindsay McBeth, Selwyn Icangelo and Nora Mitzner
Two days later on June 30, Lindsay McBeth, Selwyn Icangelo and Nora Mitzner attacked an unidentified lesbian in Mastic Beach, NY. According to 27east.com, the attack happened in the woman’s own front yard.
The trio apparently began attacking the woman because they thought she was taking photographs of them, said Detective Sergeant Robert Reecks, commanding officer of the Suffolk County Police Hate Crimes Unit.
The three attackers pulled up to a house on Gooseberry Drive, located across the street from the victim’s home, in a car driven by Mr. Icangelo at around 7:05 p.m., Det. Sgt. Reecks said. They were about to enter the home when they spotted the victim in her front yard with a camera. Ms. McBeth, Ms. Mitzner and Mr. Icangelo began yelling at the woman before beating her up, police said.
As they beat up the victim, they called her “queer” and Ms. Mitzner told her two friends to “f—ing tear that f—ing queer’s face off,” Det. Sgt. Reecks said.
Another woman, identified by police as the victim’s partner, told authorities that the victim was just photographing a dog that belonged to one of the three attackers.
“They were assuming their pictures were being taken and a verbal argument started,” Det. Sgt. Reecks said. “The [victim’s] partner said they were taking pictures of their dog. It was frolicking in the yard.”
The victim, whom police declined to identify because she is the victim of a crime, was taken to an area hospital and treated for minor injuries to her face and body.
August Provost III 1980 - 2009
The final hate crime victim (that I know of) in the last 11 days is the most painful. In the early hours of June 30th, the body of Seaman August Provost was found at Camp Pendleton in California. San Diego’s NBC affiliate has details:
Spokesmen for the Navy and Marine Corps confirmed that a sailor’s body was found on the base at about 3 a.m. Tuesday morning. The victim is Seaman August Prevos, 29, a native of Houston, according to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. A spokesman confirmed that there was evidence of foul play in the killing and that the case is a murder investigation.
The NCIS spokesman also said that a “person of interest” is now in custody at Camp Pendleton but has not been charged with a crime.
City Human Rights Commissioner Nicole Murray urged an audience at a gay-rights rally (at Liberty Station held Wednesday to celebrate Pride Month in San Diego) to demand answers now to a mysterious homicide at Camp Pendleton. Murray and another gay activist said they have credible information that the killing was a hate crime and that the victim was targeted because he was gay, or perceived to be gay.
The activists said their sources told them that the sailor worked as a guard for Assault Craft Unit 5 at Camp Pendleton. That unit operates the military hovercrafts stationed at Pendleton. The sources also said the victim was shot and burned.
The San Diego Union-Tribune has more, including words from August’s boyfriend:
Provost’s boyfriend, Kaether Cordero, said yesterday that Provost was openly gay but kept his private life quiet for the most part. People who he was friends with, I knew that they knew,” Cordero said from Houston. “He didn’t care that they knew. He trusted them.”
Provost had recently complained to his family that someone was harassing and bothering him, and they advised him to tell his supervisor, said his sister, Akalia. “He’s the type that if someone comes at him, he walks away. He never stands and argues,” she said. “He didn’t deserve anything but a good life.”
Family described Provost as a well-mannered, humble and goofy guy who strived to make sure his mother was well-taken care of. Provost was assigned to Assault Craft Unit 5 on the base.
It’s been 40 years since Stonewall. I don’t want to discount the massive progress we’ve made, but we have so much further to go until we can even feel safe in our own homes and neighborhoods.
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