Amazon made headlines this week when they opened up their new brick-and-mortar Seattle grocery store featuring no lines, no checkout, and virtually no human employees. Someone still has to check the IDs of alcohol buyers, but it’s only a matter of time until a robot scans your retinas to determine your age, no?
And perhaps it’s not the worst thing in the world if Amazon has fewer employees. (They don’t, really, but it’s as good a segue as we’re going to manage.)
Because one former employee of the retail giant is now looking at a prison sentence of up to 10 years for attacking a colleague he believed was gay.
26-year-old James William Hill III worked at the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Chester, Virginia in May of 2015 when he assaulted his coworker.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
While mounting his defense in court, Hill offered this eyebrow-raising wisdom–his victim, and all gay people, should expect to be attacked.
According to WTVR, a spokesperson for the United States Attorney’s office said:
“Evidence showed that Hill assaulted the co-worker because of the co-worker’s perceived sexual orientation. Hill admitted to an Amazon manager and a Chesterfield County Police Officer that he dislikes people who are gay, and further stated that people who are gay should expect to be assaulted because of their sexual orientation.”
Charming.
Hill was found guilty of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, and be sentenced at a later time.
Polaro
Not Amazon’s fault; glad he’s going to prison.
amigay
Oh, he’s going to be new meat! so much fun in store.
jel1955
I hope the people who taught James William Hill III to hate the way he does understand that they taught him to be a criminal.
CastleSF
He is just a deranged soul who acted out for whatever reasons. Hope he gets some hep. He doesn’t need to love gays. He just needs to learn to respect them.
ChrisK
I don’t care whether or not he gets help and neither does he. 10 years is a good a amount of time though.
charlietex
Yeah I also hope he gets hepatitis.
happiness17
CastleSF-Hill learned to hate gay people some place. Most likely while growing up from a family member. When a person is a homophobe often it’s very hard to change how they feel. It’s the hate that’s in their soul that makes it so difficult. Hill will probably never like gays. He does need to at least learn to tolerate them and keep his hatred to himself. Unfortunately they’ll always be people in the world like Hill who are full of hate and ignorant.
ChrisK
Same way I felt about blacks growing up. Never met any in my small white town but my racist dad made me feel pure hateful towards them. Took many years to get over that. It’s a sickness.
prarie pup
Gays don’t require his respect, we require him to mind his own effing business, just as we stay out of straight people’s sex lives.
jhon_siders
He has his right of opinion and I have the right to shoot his thug ass if he comes at me !!
CanadianGuy62
I guess, being black, he should expect to be assaulted – perhaps even lynched, if you want to take things to their “logical” extension – by members of the KKK, alt right, neo-Nazi groups, etc.
Prison might be the best place for him. Then again, those institutions are not exactly bastions of egalatarianism.
Bonne chance, Monsieur Hill.
happiness17
Hill must have really horrified the guy that he attacked. At the very least he showed no respect for him. Unfortunately for hill in prison he’ll be taught the hard way to respect people. For someone that’s obviously so against gays once Hill gets to prison he’ll be the new guy and end up satisfying some of the other prison. He may even be made to wear make up and a dress. Prison is a whole different world and Hill soon find that out. He’ll know what really fear is like.
CastleSF
Happiness, your description of the prison life and its prospect are one of the most unsavory kind. The nightmarish situation is one I hope I’ll never find myself in.
jess_lopez
The lowlife can dislike gay people as much as he wants. Gay people don’t give AF. However, assaulting people would be crossing the line. May be rot in jail.
DCguy
A deranged idiot, who most likely will be demanding to be front of the line up to give blow-jobs in prison.
Amazon isn’t directly responsible, however, they advertise on Breitbart and have refused to pull ads. And THAT site does post multiple anti-lgbt and other articles demonizing other Americans to their readers which encourages this behavior.
ChrisK
Funy that Jeff Benzo’s was just honored at a HRC event talking about how Gay friendly he and his company were.
gft77
I’m always amazed when someone in a minority…Black, Hispanic, Asian, Female, or whatever decides that they hate LGBTQ people for some reason. Societies have found no better reason to hate some of those mentioned because of their skin color and as for women, since the beginning of time, they’ve been blamed for every problem under the sun.
Perhaps it’s time for people to think for a change and understand that when we all stand together for equality, we’re all better off.
ChrisK
Somehow I don’t think this one is much of a history scholar or a deep thinker. Most that understand that get it though.
Kangol
Very true. The same is true for white LGBTQ people who’re racist, sexist, etc. I mean, it goes all ways, doesn’t it?
The anti-gay idiot above, who sounds like he’s suffering from extreme gay panic, may get the shock of his life when he gets to prison. I don’t condone prison rape, but those lips look like they may be getting quite a workout when the lights go off.
chris33133
I don’t understand why he wasn’t prosecuted under state assault laws. I’d guess that the local DA decided not to pursue matter (which is an issue in itself) and that, as a result, the feds got involved.
Did Amazon fire the perp immediately?
Tête Carrée
“he dislikes people who are black, and further stated that people who are black should expect to be shot by police because of their color.”