Gay activists are scratching their heads over prosecutorial findings in a Newark triple murder. Thomas McTigue, assistant prosecutor for Essex County, New Jersey, says he and his team have found no evidence of hate crime in the 2007 shooting of three college students.

Terrance Aeriel, Iofemi Hightower and Dashon Harvey, who was gay, lost their lives after a group of men and teenage boys lined them up and shot them execution style at an Elementary school last August.

Many suspected Harvey’s homosexuality and/or the group’s plan to attend the next day’s gay pride may have influenced the killers. McTigue, however, disagrees: “We have not been able to establish a hate crime” under the definition of the New Jersey hate crimes statute. We don’t have probable cause for a hate crime.”

James Credle of the Newark Pride Alliance tells reporters, however, that the victims’ families may have derailed hate crime efforts:

We were told that anything related to the victims’ sexual orientation should remain a private matter. They made it clear that they didn’t want the case to go in that direction.
…
My concern is whether the prosecutor would consider the preference of the families to be political pressure or not. Because the families clearly don’t want this to be noted.

Credle also noted that homophobia within the black community may be at least partially to blame for the hate crime avoidance.

If we were the parents, we’d be trumpeting the gay shit left, right and center. Hello! Gay sympathy’s the best kind of sympathy - and usually comes with a wicked memorial party!