The Republic of T.

So the Senate vote on hate crimes has been put on hold after Senate Majority leader Harry Reid withdrew the defense authorization bill to which the hate crimes amendment was going to be added, after the Democrats failed to break a Republican filibuster over another amendment calling for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. That’s disappointing for a number of reasons, mainly because now the Dems will have to find another vehicle for the amendment, and I have my doubts they can find one that the president will be as pressured to sign as a defense authorization.

For further background, HRC’s Back Story blog links to a history of hate crimes legislation related to LGBT people, Box Turtle Bulletin posts the text of the bill and details religious right propaganda against it, Cross and Flame over at Street Prophets debunked that propaganda a while back, and yours truly tried to explain how hate crimes legislation gives state law enforcement more resources and empowers federal government to act when state officials can’t or won’t. Also, the House introduced a resolution mourning David Ritcheson’s death, which I mentioned earlier.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to proceed with a project I had in mind before I heard the news that there would be not vote on hate crimes this week and probably not until later this year. Earlier thisi week I posted a round-up of recent anti-gay hate crimes, similar to a longer hate crimes round-up I posted in May. After I published that earlier post in May, a commenter suggested that I make sure all the cases I covered in my post were also updated on Wikipedia. I’ve been pretty regular user of Wikipedia as a reference, but had never contributed more than a few edits to correct an error or two, until now.

My experience has always been that our stories are one of the most powerful asset we have in striving for justice. People understand stories about real people just like themselves. They can imagine those stories happening to them of to people they love. And even if they aren’t sure how they feel about homosexuality or same-sex marriage, when they hear stories of injustice and violence against us and our families, it offends their sense of morality. Whatever else they’re not sure of, they know “that’s not right.” And that’s the first step towards convincing them to help us do something about it.

So, if adding a few stories to Wikipedia can help, I’m wiling to make the effort, and to research and add other stories that people send me concerning hate crimes against LGBT people.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay, gay bashing, gay rights, hate crimes, homophobia, politics, web, wikipedia

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One of the things I hadn’t taken into consideration upon launching the project to record anti-LGBT hate crimes on Wikipedia was that it would mean living with each of these stories as I research them and try to gather as many fact as possible. (Communicating them as dispassionately as possible was another challenge.) It means reading the details of the crimes over and over again, learning about the lives victims and perpetrators along the way, to the point where their lives collide, watching that collision over and over again, and then spending more time shifting through the wreckage.

That’s what it felt like as I put together the next two stories. Once again, it wasn’t until I finished both that I realized the connection between them. Arthur “J.R.” Warren and Paul Broussard were both killed on July 4th, ten years apart. Both were killed by multiple attackers; strangers in Broussard’s case, and acquaintances in Warren’s case. Both suffered brutal beatings — including being kicked with steel-toed boots — that ended their lives. Warren pleaded with his killers to take him home. Broussard raised one hand as lay bleeding on the sidewalk, as if pleading with his killers for help or mercy even as they rifled his pockets for souvenirs. Broussard’s killers drove away cheering and high-fiving each other as he lay dying. Warren’s killers were watching Independence Day fireworks with their families the same day that Warren’s body was found. Both deaths sparked protests and vigils.

In the debate over the current hate crimes bill, posted in full at Box Turtle Bulletin, maybe the opposition can answer some questions regarding stories like Warren’s and Broussard’s.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, hate crimes, politics, religion, wikipedia

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I was bruised and battered I couldn’t tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself
I saw my reflection in a window I didn’t know my own face
oh brother are you gonna leave me wastin’ away
on the streets of Philadelphia

~ Bruce Springsteen, “Philadelphia”

I kept hearing those lyrics over the last couple of days as I felt like I was walking the streets of Philadelphia with Nizah Morris. Just a short distance, really, from Juniper and Chancellor streets to 16th and Walnut streets, before she disappeared into a few lost minutes that nobody who knows anything about is talking about. And at the end of that short journey — half a mile, just to end up three miles from home — she was gone, and nobody seemed to know why. And after two days, I don’t know why myself. But I do know that her story illustrates one of the reasons why one aspect of the hate crimes bill is needed.

Given how local law enforcement handled Nizah’s death, I can only imagine that the possibility of federal involvement or intervention might have lifted the haze that seems to cover the details of this case: police logs that don’t match their own accounts, police reports that were never filed; Morris lying unidentified in the hospital for 64 hours, when at least one of the three police involved knew her from past arrests, and one witness identified her to one of the officers involved; a detective who informs Morris’ mother of her death with by saying “He’s dead”; a medical examiner rules Morris’ death a homicide, but the police department assesses it as accidental until the second opinion they sought confirms the M.E.’s findings; a recording of a 911 call (one of two) edited down to 6 minutes when transmissions between the police officers involved really went on for 49 minutes; still no transcript of the call released; and an investigation that leads precisely nowhere.

But don’t take it from me. Talk a walk with Nizah for yourself.

Technorati Tags: culture, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, gender, hate crimes, homophobia, politics

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I guess it was inevitable when I started this project that I would come across cases that would make me think about how easily, as a gay man, I could have found myself in the victims’ shoes. I think back to when I was a single gay man, and how any of the men I met up with back then could have killed me after coming back to my place or taking me to theirs. Alone, in a room with no other witnesses to say what happened. It’s a motif that runs through several of the stories I find myself immersed in during the course of this project; those few minutes when the victim and perpetrator disappear into a haze, and only one emerges to tall the tale.

In cases like that of Richie Phillps, the story is one of the victim attacking the killer, and thus “bringing it on himself,” as the defense attorney essentially put it during the trial for Phillips’ murder. And in some states like Kentucky where Phllips’ was murdered in 2005 ? his body folded in a suitcase and tossed into a lake ? laws called “stand-your-ground” laws come very close to codifying what’s known as the “gay panic” defense. In Phillips’ case, that may have worked to the benefit of his killer, Joseph Cottrell, who becomes eligible for parole this year ? 2 1/2 years after his manslaughter conviction for a murder his own relatives testified was planned and and motivated by the sexual orientation of the victim.

Depending, of course, on who you think is the victim. Or who the jury thinks is the victim.
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The dual murder of Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill is one of the stories I had in mind when I started this project. I think it’s because it happened not long after I moved to Washington, D.C. I was working at the Human Rights Campaign then, and my job was actually to support the state campaign to defeat Measure 19 in Oregon and Idaho. I think that’s why I was so deeply affected by the murders of Ellis and Abdill a year after the Oregon measure was defeated. It’s hard to believe that more than 10 years later we’re still debating hate crimes legislation.

I’d blocked out or forgotten many of the details, but researching their story brought them all back to me. I think it impacted me in a different way this time. When I read that Ellis met with her killer at 11:00 a.m. and spend most of what would be her last day with him, I felt I knew what she would be thinking about as she sat there in handcuffs with a man who was demanding money, and whom she probably guess would very likely kill her and probably posed a danger to her family: her partner, her daughter, and her granddaughter. He left her call her family at some point, to explain her absence long from the office, and again to lure Abdill He asked her if she and Abdill were lesbians, and she said yes. In later interviews, the killer revealed that he knew Ellis and Abdill had been together for 12 years, that she was 54 years old, and that she had a granddaughter. I imagine she told him about her life in hopes of humanizing herself to him, and saving her life, probably not realizing that doing so probably sealed her fate.

And the killer? He told so many different stories that it’s difficult to know what to believe. At first, he said that their “lifestyle” was “sick,” and that knowing they were lesbians made it “easier” to kill them. Then he confessed to murdering a friend in California, who was said to have been bisexual, and whom he claims made a pass at him after night of partying. (Gay panic defense, anyone?) He said he liked bisexual women, but had “no compassion” for lesbians or gay/bisexual men. Then he said that he invented the anti-gay motive, and that his real intention was to rob the couple. But he left behind their purses, money, wallets, credit cards, jewelry and cell phones at the scene. So, was it a robbery? A hate crime? Or a little from column A and a little from column B?

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, culture, current events, gay, gay rights, hate crimes, homophobia, politics

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The unpredictable nature of hate crimes isn’t something that gets a lot of consideration, but it’s a factor in the increased level of stress LGBT persons often experience. At least according to researchers at UCLA.
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“The Panic Rooms” may become a subcategory of the Hate Crimes on Wikipedia Project. I knew, when I started the project. What made me certain I’d cover those cases was remembering the news about Timon Birchett ? a D.C. man who “associated” with gays but didn’t “identify” as gay, who at least one associate said was gay but not out, who was found murdered in his apartment back in 2003, his body stuffed into a duffle bag. Again, I thought about how easily it could have been me.

A few weeks after I moved to D.C., in ’94, I was parking my car in Dupont, on my way to dinner. I didn’t know anyone yet, and had planned to dine alone and watch people walk up and down 17th street. I was just locking car when he approached me. He was a young 20-something like myself, attractive, an attractive Latino man, with a beautiful smile, and equally beautiful muscles that filled out his tight t-shirt, and were accentuated by the rather full backpack he was carrying. He instantly struck up a conversation with me. I thought fora moment I’d gotten incredibly lucky. Here I was new in town and this hot young guy was very interested in talking to me.

He followed me down the sidewalk, explaining to me that he was a student and he was kind of out of sorts because the dorms hadn’t opened up yet (it was August), and he needed a place to stay. As attractive as he as, and as attracted as I was too him, I remembered my roommate had told me about some D.C. area gay men who’d been killed or gone missing ? mostly black gay men ? and warned me to be careful bringing home any strangers. So we walked along, him talking incessantly, and me hovering somewhere between fear and arousal. He wanted to duck into J.R.’s to use the bathroom and insisted I come in and wait for him. As it turned out, between the bathroom and the front door he found someone with a better bed to offer than I could, and I went off to dinner as planed; wondering it was I’d just narrowly missed.

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Uncontrollable rage. It’s probably a more appropriate term than “panic,” since it seems to be at the core of the other stories in this series. Uncontrollable, murderous rage seems to have been a significant factor in the murders of Richie Phillips and Jason Gage. “Panic” implies a kind of fear, but the brutality of their murders seems to point to an anger, triggered in both cases ? according to their killers ? by unwanted sexual advances. In Phillips case, his killer’s relatives testified that the murder had planned the murder, and lured Phillips into his hotel room to kill him, because of a deep anger he had towards gay men.

Gage’s killer accompanied him to several bars on the night of his murder ? including a gay bar ? then went back to Gage’s apartment, where he claimed to have killed Gage in “a fight that got way out of hand.” Yet his killer bore no wounds from a fight. Gage’s body bore no defensive wounds, suggesting that he fought off an attack, and police said his apartment showed no signs of a struggle; just two glasses sitting out, suggesting that the two had been drinking and watching television together; leaving open the question of whether the killer’s “panic” set in after a consensual encounter between the two. No one else was in Gage’s apartment that night. Only he and his killer know what happened there that night.

That’s true for Glenn Kopitske too, killed by a 17-year-old, six-foot-three, 280 lb. football star (wrestler, and Eagle Scout) who claimed to have flown into a murderous rage after a consensual sexual encounter with Kopitske ? an unmarried, 37 year old, bipolar man who lived at the end of a dead end road. Gary Hirte claimed he was sitting on top of his car, under a bridge, getting drunk one night in July, 2003, when he encountered Kopitske. He would later testify that he had “homosexual urges” that got stronger when he drank. He’d finished six malt liquors and 15 shots of vodka when Kopitske drove up in his car. The two flirted, according to Hirte, and then agreed to head back to Kopitske’s house.

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Uncontrollable rage. Like I said before, it seems to be a recurring theme in many of the stories. What interesting is that in some that rage doesn’t seem to be triggered by much more than the mere existence of someone who happens to be gay or lesbian; not necessarily because of any real or imagined sexual advances. Just the fact that someone is gay or lesbian or that a same-sex couple exchanges a kiss or otherwise displays affection in front of someone is enough to inspire murderous rage. (To get an idea of the absurdity of this, imagine the never ending stream of bloodbaths if every heterosexual couple who ever made out, kissed, or held hands in public inspired the same kind of murderous rage that was eventually made manifest.)

Like the story of Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill, the shooting of Claudia Brenner and murder of Rebecca Wight was one that I remembered and had in mind when I started this project. I think I remembered it because it was one of the first cases of anti-gay violence that I heard about. Unlike some other cases, there could be little doubt that Brenner and Wight were attacked because of their sexual orientation. Their killer stalked them — hunted them, really — as they hiked along the Appalachian Trail.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, hate crimes, homophobia, politics

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That’s what the killer in this case said he was doing when he shot Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder — a gay couple in Redding California — to death. He was “obeying God’s law,” which according to him says:

Benjamin Matthew Williams, the 31-year-old white supremacist accused of murdering a gay couple outside this Northern California town in July, is now admitting that he slipped into the men’s home while they were sleeping and shot them to death in their bed.

He did it, he said, because they were gay and God told him to.

When asked if he had killed the pair, Williams answered, “Absolutely.”

…”The defense that he has is a religious defense, and he is saying the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong and they should be killed and the blood is on their heads,” O’Connor said. “But as a practical matter I don’t think the judge is going to allow that defense, as opposed to one using the laws of the state of California.”

Of course, it’s not that simple. It never is. That’s one thing I’ve discovered as I continue this project of documenting anti-LGBT hate crimes on Wikipedia. There are almost always other elements at play, which fall into place to unleash that “uncontrollable rage” that seems to be a theme in so many of these cases; sometimes just rage that LGBT people happen to exist. But sometimes an attackers rage at himself is simply projected outward. This looks like one of those cases.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, hate crimes, politics, web, wikipedia

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Once again, the theme seems to be uncontrollable rage. In the cases of Richie Phillips, Jason Gage, and Glenn Kopitske it was triggered by alleged sexual advances or sexual activity. In many of the cases I’m researching now, uncontrollable rage was triggered when men discovered that the women with whom they’d been intimate consensually were transgendered. Just as murder seems a rather extreme alternative to simply saying “No, thank you,” to allegedly unwanted, alleged advances, so it stands that no one deserves to be murdered if their partner does not know — or they do not disclose — their biological gender.

I don’t pretend to know what it’s like to have to decide, if, how, or when to disclose your gender identity to someone else, just like I don’t know what it’s like to have to struggle with gender identity and finally make the decision to start living on the outside the gender you’ve always felt on the inside. I can only listen to and acknowledge the experience of those who have lived with the reality of being transgender. I do know that no one deserves to die for being transgender, whether their sexual partner knows their biological gender or not. In some cases, I’m as skeptical about what the killers knew and when they knew it, as I am that any sexual advances or encounters in the previous cases involving gay men were unwanted or less than consensual.

In the murders of Jason Gage and Glenn Kopitske, the facts strongly suggest that whatever happened behind closed doors — where only the killer and the victim know what happened—was consensual. The uncontrollable rage that resulted in their murders was triggered by shame and anger on the part of their killers, over their own desires, or that others might find out, and their manhood would be threatened as a result. In some of the cases involving transgender victims, I find myself wondering how much the killers knew and to what degree the murders were driven by shame, guilt, anger, and the threatened manhood of the killers.

I found myself wondering about that as I researched the murder of Nireah Johnson. (BTW, if you’d like to help support the research for this project, you can do so via the PayPal button on the sidebar. All contributions will go to accessing news archives for research purposes.)

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, gender, homophobia, human rights, masculinity, politics, wikipedia

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You never know who you might meet. Or what they might do to you. That’s what I thought when I wrote up Jason Gage’s story. That’s true of, well, everybody. But in many of the cases I’ve researched so far, there’s an added wrinkle for LGBT people. The people you meet may intend to do you harm, because you’re LGBT and because they can. Because, as Paul Broussard’s attackers did, they think that you either won’t report being attacked, or that police won’t do anything about it. Because you’re LGBT. And, it follows, you don’t matter and neither does what happens to you.

That’s what Michael Sandy’s killers thought, when they sat in front of a computer, prowling a gay chatroom, looking for gay men they could lure into meeting with suggestions of sexual activity, and then rob. They figured that gay men would be less likely to resist. That they’d be easy to rob. And they met Michael Sandy. Five days later, Sandy was dead. He died trying to escape his four attackers. He ran into the street, where they pursued him and continued to attack him. Michael Sandy ran into traffic and was hit by a car. One of his attackers dragged him to the side of the road, rifled through his pockets, and left him there. Then, they went home and took naps.

When I first heard about Michael Sandy’s death, I thought to myself “That could have been me.”

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, courts, crime, gay bashing, gay rights, homophobia, politics, race

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After some consideration, and discussions, I’ve come to the decision that I will add no further articles on LGBT hate crime victims to Wikipedia. When I started the Hate Crimes on Wikipedia project, it was because I’d noticed that there were several anti-LGBT hate crimes I knew, and had written about, of that were not documented on Wikipedia for some reason. I thought that by adding them to Wikipedia, I could bring more exposure to a broader spectrum LGBT people who have been the targets of hate crimes.

I have learned, however, that the notability guidelines on Wikipedia, and some of the community members who enforce them, make it almost impossible to show to bring exposure to hate crimes that happened long ago and/or not received widespread coverage. And that means that it is difficult to being exposure to more diverse LGBT hate crime victims on Wikipedia, if their stories are not recent, having received widespread coverage, or otherwise launched major protests or new legislation. As subjective as those guidelines sound, they are reasons I was given as objections to some of the articles I posted.

So, rather than fight that battle, I’ve decided to launch a new site: the LGBT Hate Crimes Project. I wanted to keep it simple, so that the focus will be on the stories. It’s a wiki that I spent much of yesterday and today setting up, and it’s where the new stories I will research and write up will be housed. I’m also in the process of copying the articles I wrote for Wikipedia onto this new site. I’m also in the process of rounding up support, as it looks like it will be an ongoing project.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, hate crimes, homophobia, politics, technology, wikipedia

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I was in the middle of researching and writing up the murders of Ukea Davis and Stephanie Thomas when I realize I would have to take the hate crimes project I started on Wikipedia beyond Wikipedia. As with Erica Keel and Nireah Johnson, I’d be hard pressed to defend whether they met the standard of “notability” on Wikipedia; basically that it’d be an uphill battle to convince some people that the lives and deaths of Davis and Thomas were and are worth noticing.

It certainly wasn’t recent. And beyond a few hundred people who gathered for a vigil at scene of the murder a few days later, and another vigil a year later, their deaths didn’t spark massive protests. It’s been five years since they were shot to death, with subautomatic weapons, shot at least 10 times each, in the head and the chest, in a neighborhood where Thomas’ mother said everyone knew they were transgender, where both had faced harassment for being transgender.

They died on the same Washington, D.C., street corner where Tyra Hunter had lain dying of injuries from an automobile accident, when emergency responders laughed and withdrew emergency treatment when they discovered Hunter was transgender. The same fire engine company that responded to Hunter’s accident responded to Davis’ and Thomas’ murders, and according to witnesses at the scene, the women’s bodies were dragged from the car. Thomas was dropped face down on the street, and a firefighter later turned her body over with his foot as blood poured from her wounds. You might say they were afforded as much dignity in death as they were in life.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, culture, D.C., gay bashing, gay rights, gender, hate crimes, politics, web, wikipedia

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Not who’s targeted for a hate crime because of their (real or perceived) sexual orientation ends up being murdered. Some survive, but their lives are never the same. Like Dwan Prince. His was one of the stories I wanted to write about when I started this project. I’d blogged about it before and always wanted to cover it in more detail.

What struck me as I was reading about how Dwan Prince was attacked by three men — right outside of his apartment building, who beat, stomped, and kicked him while shouting anti-gay epithets (and, according to some witnesses, his name), and how one attacker returned to deliver one final kick to Prince’s face, as lay dazed and bleeding — was what sparked it all. Unlike what happened to Richie Philips or Jason Gage, there were no alleged (and allegedly unwelcome) sexual advances behind closed doors. Like Roberto Duncanson, what happened between Prince and his attacker happened in the street. And what happened to Dwan Prince happened in the street.

And what sparked the beating that would leave Dwan Prince with lifelong consequences? A look and a flirtatious remark. Like Roberto Duncanson, Prince’s main offense was just looking at his attacker. (I’m reminded of the response I used to hear in kindergarden, “How would you know he’s looking at you unless you’re looking at him?”) Like Duncanson’s attacker, Prince’s asked “What the fuck are you looking at?” And, according to witnesses, Prince responded with a flirtatious joke. (Just like Kevin Aviance’s attackers claimed he provoked a beating by calling one of them “sweetie.”)

For that, Dwan Prince’s life was unalterably changed, and very nearly taken from him.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, hate crimes, homophobia, politics

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August 2003 was a deadly month to be a transgender woman in Washington, D.C. One year after Ukea Davis and Stephanie Thomas were shot to death, three transgender women were shot inside of just five days. It started with the murder of Bella Evangelista. It continued with the murder of Emonie Kiera Spaulding, and the shooting of Dee Andre. All of three murders had something in common besides the victims being transgender. In each case, the victims were engaged in sex work. Evangelista, according to friends, was part of a support group in which she talked about having to engage in occasional sex work to support herself.

In fact, the three murders caused a discussion at the time that came to mind for me when, as I was working on the Bella Evangelista entry, a I found myself in a discussion about including transgender people in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. I couldn’t help but see a direct connection between employment discrimination against transgender persons, and the murders of transgender women engaged in sex work.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, D.C., gender, hate crimes, homophobia, politics

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Edgar Garzon and Julio Rivera died just one block from one another; one block and eleven years. In the process of researching Garzon’s murder, I couldn’t help reading about Rivera’s as well. And once I finished writing up the entry on Garzon, it just made sense to write up Rivera’s murder as well. (Garzon’s friend, Andres Duques, blogs at Blabbeando, and wrote a must-read series of posts about the attack on Garzon, his death, and the aftermath.)

Aside from the obvious, two Latino gay men murdered in the same neighborhood more than 10 years apart, have more in common. Both galvanized the community. Vigils, and candlelight marches ensued in the wake of their deaths, with calls for the murders to be investigated as hate crimes. Rewards were raised for information concerning both murders. In both cases one one of the alleged attackers fled to another country.

And, most of all, more than ten years later, here we are still talking about whether stuff like what happened to Garzon and Rivera should even be considered hate crimes.

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In the five days following the murder of Bella Evangelista, just over a year after the murders of Ukea Davis and Stephanie Thomas, August of 2003 hadn’t gotten in any safer for transgender women in Washington, D.C. On August 16, 2003, Emonie Spaulding became the second transgender woman to be murdered in D.C. in six days, and the second of three transgender women to be shot, as Dee Andre was shot and wounded the same night that Spaulding was murdered.

The amazing thing about Emonie Spaulding’s murder was that the police and the prosecution seemed not to think that Spaulding’s murder was bias motivated. In fact, they were at a loss to imagine a motive for the crime until the moment the defense attorney stood up in court and gave them one.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, courts, crime, current events, gay bashing, gender, politics

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I very nearly subtitled this post “blood money.” I started researching it and writing it on the day I read two seemingly unrelated news articles. The first was about religious organizations that promote homophobia in a significant portion of their fundraising efforts have raked in over $400 million in the past year. The second was about the death of Richard Jewell last week.

Richard Jewell, accused by the media in 1996 of being the prime suspect the Atlanta Olympic Park bombing during that year’s Olympic Games was found dead in his home in west Georgia. The true perpetrator, Eric Robert Rudolph, would later bomb a gay and lesbian nightclub, the Otherside Lounge also in Atlanta. Rudolph also bombed two abortion clinics.

…It was later discovered that he had no involvement with the crime whatsoever and eventually homophobic, anti-government extremist, Eric Robert Randolph, pleaded guilty to the crime and is serving a life sentence.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, courts, crime, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, homophobia, politics, religion

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Thirteen minutes. That’s the amount of time that passed between the moment police arrived to take a report from a bar employee in Roanoke, VA, who called 911 — after a man asked for directions to a gay bar, flashed his gun, and said he was “wasting faggots” that night — and the the moment when the shooting at the Backstreet Cafe was called in to police. When Ronald Gay stopped to ask an employee at the Corned Bee & Co. Bar for directions to a gay bar, flashed his gun, and declared his intentions, it was between 11:00 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. Police arrived at Corned Bee & Co by 11:39 p.m., and by 11:46 p.m.

The shooting at the Backstreet Cafe, a gay bar in downtown Roanoke, was called in to police at 11:51 p.m. By then Danny Overstreet was dead, and six others wounded. Police stopped Ronald Gay around midnight, two blocks away from the bar. He quietly surrendered, and later told police that he’d thrown his gun into a garbage can (and gave them the location) because he didn’t want to harm any police officers when he was inevitably picked up. They, after all, were no this targets that evening.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, homophobia, politics

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