Friday, October 8, 2010

"I got bullied too, but I pulled myself up by my bootstraps"

Trigger warning - rape, homophobia, hate crimes, and violence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/nyregion/09bias.html?hp

He was told there was a party at a brick house on Osborne Place, a quiet block set on a steep hill in the Bronx. He showed up last Sunday night as instructed, with plenty of cans of malt liquor. What he walked into on the other side of the door was not a party at all, but a night of torture — he was sodomized, burned and whipped.

All punishment, the police said Friday, for being gay. 

There were nine attackers, ranging from 16 to 23 years old and calling themselves the Latin King Goonies, the police said. Before setting upon their 30-year-old victim, they had snatched up two teenage boys whom they beat, the police said, until the boys — one of whom was sodomized with a plunger — admitted to having had sex with the man.

The attackers forced the man to strip to his underwear and tied him to a chair, the police said. One of the teenage victims was still there, and the “Goonies” ordered him to attack the man. The teenager hit him in the face and burned him with a cigarette on his nipple and penis as the others jeered and shouted gay slurs, the police said. Then the attackers whipped the man with a chain and sodomized him with a small baseball bat.

The beatings and robberies went on for hours. They were followed by a remarkably thorough attempt to sanitize the house — including pouring bleach down drains, the police said, as little by little word of the attacks trickled to the police. A crucial clue to the attackers was provided by someone who slipped a note to a police officer outside the crime scene, at 1910 Osborne Place.

What I'm wondering is if this is some kind of 'sweeping hatecrime madness' that's taking over all across the states, or (more likely) this is the same old homophobic hatecrimes that are already happening but ever since those kids killed themselves now they're suddenly getting more PR because the news figures it'll generate more hits. 

1 comment:

  1. One thing that bugs me about the thing is I'm curious about if the teens actually had sex with him or if it was a "You'll say you did if you want us to stop." I mean, it's a perfect example of how awful homophobes can be, but at the same time I fear that people will focus on the teens part of it to make the claim that this somehow proves "gay = pedophile" or something equally stupid.

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