San Diego, Where Being Called ‘Faggot’ During a Gay Bashing Doesn’t Make It a Hate Crime
Jacob Harshbarger, the San Diego man called a “fucking faggot” during a Halloween gay bashing he suffered while walking his dogs, might see his assailants meet some justice: 23-year-olds Michael Brandon and Christopher Blount have been charged with felony battery counts. Police initially called the attack a matter of “being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” and not a hate crime. It appears they’re sticking to it: prosecutors aren’t levying any hate crime element to the charges.
Meanwhile a second San Diego attack is being reported, with Martin Niwinski (pictured) and Daniel Crawford getting beat up the following day after Crawford was called “faggot” while dressed up as Freddie Mercury. Neither men are gay, which has Det. Gary Hassen brushing off any hate crime element, because while “a disparaging remark was made … he [Crawford] was sitting with his girlfriend. He is not gay, and as such, can not be a victim of a hate crime.”
What was that about perceived sexual orientation?
Luckily we have a shiny new hate crimes law.
Let’s watch it kick into action.
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WTF? Goddamn, are straight people fucking stupid? What part about conveying a threat to an entire community via violent crime is so hard for them to understand? The freakin’ queers don’t need to actually be there witnessing the beating, for fucks sake! If a cross burns on my lawn, and nobody but me sees it, am I only entitled to the small claims court settlement for damages to my grass, or is the guy who fucking burned it a Klan member trying to send a message? Unfucking real. SoCal can just freakin’ explode in a fireball, and I was raised there.
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@samthor: Couldn’t agree more. I think we need to have more of us willing to die for this cause. Be out, proud and ready to go down for the count if someone starts their homophobic crap. Homophobes are the biggest cowards and if more of us were willing to die for this cause (ie, make sure if a homophobe starts a fight someone isn’t going to be getting up from that fight) then things might change. The day we see a news item about a gay man beating the living crap out of a homophobe who attacked him is the day the tide will turn, IMHO.
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@customartist:
That is not the way the criminal justice system works.
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@customartist: No. The concept of “innocent until proven guilty” is too valuable to give up, even for this.
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San Diego cops need some type of education. Maybe a tersely worded letter from HRC would do it.