With some 10 Latin King Goonies suspects now behind bars, one of the three victims, 17, evidently felt safe enough to speak the media — albeit with his back turned to the camera. The torture must be playing on a loop in the head of this gang member, suspected to be gay, so I can’t even imagine how much strength it takes to share that nightmare with the press. (Most remarkably: After the torture, the teen was told not to take it personally, and he could still join up.) Stay strong, guys.
horror stories
Alex
What a nightmare. I shivered when they said that a plunger had been involved.
Cam
The attackers claim that they were told to do this by gang leadership, that means the prosecutor should be able to go after the entire gang in a RICO style, and get them all for conspiracy to commit a hate crime. Throw the attackers in jail, but also they need to go after and take down the entire gang.
hephaestion
Connecticut Senatorial candidate Linda McMahon had one of her wrestlers stick a broom up the ass of a pseudo-gay wrestler ON STAGE at one of her wrestling events in Connecticut about 10 years ago, if my memory serves me correctly. She’s had lots of pseudo-gay wrestlers on her shows, who are ALWAYS humiliated & destroyed easily, to send the message that we are weak, with the crowds shouting the “f” word at them.
And she may be the next Senator from Connecticut.
Surely GLAAD has something about this in its archives. I recall sending in a complaint to them about it.
tallskin2
What kind of scummy culture is this that’s developed??
Ken S
It *does* bear mentioning, I think, that as abhorrent as those low-life thugs’ actions were towards the first victim in the story, that they were low-life thugs he *wanted to be a part of.* It’s appropriate to have some sympathy for him- what was done to him was awful, obviously- but let’s not forget: if he had gotten in to the gang without incident, it could very easily have been him taking a box cutter or a plunger handle to some innocent person later on.
He’s no martyr, he was an applicant to join a violent gang. He wanted to be one of them and do what they do, and his ‘peers’ turned on him. I feel for him, but I’d feel far worse for some innocent gay street kid that might have crossed his path 6 months from now if he had gotten in. Amid all of the ‘get well soon’ cards, he shouldn’t be allowed to forget that he wasn’t some bystander who got caught in the cross-fire of homophobic thuggery; it’s the inevitable product of the life *he wanted.*
whatever
@tallskin2: It’s called “American culture” and it hasn’t just developed. It’s been going on for close to 400 years.
Why are we shocked when people do sadistic and violent things? This is a feature, not a bug of our culture.
rodrigo
I hope the so called Latin Kings rot in jail.
ewe
They can rot rot rot in a prison cell forever till they die. They are a danger to civilized society.
Jake
There’s no excuse for this kind of behavior. And I understand the desire for revenge. Believe me. I live in the Bronx, a fifteen minute walk away from where the torture went down. It’s infuriating to be terrified in your own neighborhood!
Walking over there and writing about it helped a lot though.
I’d like to see these guys forced to visit every elementary, middle, and high school in NYC to explain how deadly serious homophobia can be. dd
If anyone’s interested, I wrote up the story and what I think was behind the attacks:
http://socialistworker.org/2010/10/13/causes-of-a-horrifying-crime
Photo I took of the house:
[img]http://socialistworker.org/files/imagecache/242/files/images/P1010062-Osborne%20Place.jpg[/img]
UpStaircase
Whatever is correct. Except that statistics show gangs commit more violent crimes than ever before. African-Americans, after the Civil Rights movements of the ’50’s and ’60’s, have quadrupled their murder rate against each other. Even poor Rosa Parks got brutally mugged!
whatever
@UpStaircase: Link on the violent crime stats? Crime is down everywhere, which is anomaly given the economic downturn. Just look at the murder rates in major cities, LA, NY, etc.