Gay bashing

[michaelflanagansf]

245 Year Sentence in Slaying of Three Newark College Students
09 July 2010

The first defendant convicted in the gruesome 2007 execution-style slayings of three Newark college friends—and attacking and sexually assaulting a fourth, who survived—was sentenced Thursday to three consecutive life terms in prison plus 20 years. The 245-year-sentence means Rodolfo Godinez must serve at least 218 years for his convictions on murder, felony murder, robbery and weapons charges.

{snip}

Godinez is the first of three adults and three teens to be tried for the violent gang initiation. In 2007, Rod 2.0 reported one of the teen suspects attended  high school with one of the gay victims—and this may have been among the reasons the victims were targeted. Prosecutors declined to file hate crime charges because the victims' families "did not want" the deceased identified as gay.

full story here:

http://rodonline.typepad.com/rodonline/2010/07/245-year-sentence-in-slaying-of-three-newark-college-students.html

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Sad.

[gnash]

mugged by a 13 year old. 

[BayCityJohn]

17 Dead at Gay Party in Mexico

A party in the northern Mexican city of Torreón that was organized by a gay group on Facebook ended in a bloodbath early Sunday morning when gunmen opened fire, killing 17 men and women and injuring 18 others.

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/07/18/17_Dead_at_Gay_Party_in_Mexico/

[michaelflanagansf]

^^^ However, Mexico being what it is these days, it seems that the key factor may have been the publicity about the event and not the sexuality of the people involved - i.e. a drug war killing, not a gay bashing - re:

Officials say gunmen kill 17 at party in Mexico
By OSCAR VILLALBA, Associated Press Writer Oscar Villalba, Associated Press Writer   – 1 hr 8 mins ago

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico – The gunmen did not say a word as they jumped from their cars and stormed the private party. They simply opened fire. When they were done, 17 people lay dead and 18 wounded.

Sunday's massacre in the city of Torreon was ghastly, but no longer unprecedented in northern Mexico, a region that is slammed day after day by gruesome slayings that authorities attribute to an increasingly brutal battle between drug gangs feuding over territory.

Investigators had no suspects or information on a possible motive in the attack, but Coahuila, where Torreon is located, is among several northern Mexican states that have seen a spike in drug-related violence as the Gulf cartel and its former enforcers, the Zetas, fight for control of drug-trafficking routes.

The attack on the party came just three days after a car bomb killed several people in the northern city of Ciudad Juarez — and a little more than a month after assailants raided a drug-rehab center in the northern city of Chihuahua, killing 19 people in cold blood.

Television footage showed the patio of the house in Torreon streaked with bloodstains and white plastic chairs overturned beneath a party tent decorated with pictures of snowmen.

Several of the victims were young and some were women, police said, but their identities and ages had not yet been determined.

The assailants arrived in a convoy of vehicles, the Coahuila state Attorney General's Office said in a statement. Police found more than 120 bullet casings at the scene, most of them from .223-caliber weapons.

Torreon is no stranger to violence.

In May, gunmen killed eight people at a bar in the city, while later that month a television station and the offices of a local newspaper came under fire. A pregnant woman was wounded in the attack on the offices of Noticias de El Sol de la Laguna.

Across northern Mexico, there have been increasing reports of mass shootings at parties, bars and rehab clinics.

In January, gunmen barged into a private party in the border city of Ciudad Juarez and killed 15, many of them high school or university students. Relatives say that attack was a case of mistaken identity, while state officials claim someone at the party was targeted, although they have not said who it was.

On Thursday, drug-gang members set off their first successful car bomb. They lured federal police and paramedics to an intersection in Ciudad Juarez by calling in a false report of a wounded police officer, and when the authorities were in place at the scene, they detonated the explosive. Three people were killed, including a federal officer and a private doctor who had rushed to help.

continues:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100719/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_drug_war_mexico

[CellarDweller115]

Geeez....how awful.  I can't imagine living like that.

[michaelflanagansf]

Geeez....how awful.  I can't imagine living like that.

Not to get TOO far off topic (it is about violence, after all) but it is TERRIBLE there Chuck.  I should probably do a post over in the Cullen Cafe about it.  There have been so many slaying of women there that there is an entry about it in wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_homicides_in_Ciudad_Ju%C3%A1rez

[CellarDweller115]

Not to get TOO far off topic (it is about violence, after all) but it is TERRIBLE there Chuck.  I should probably do a post over in the Cullen Cafe about it.  There have been so many slaying of women there that there is an entry about it in wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_homicides_in_Ciudad_Ju%C3%A1rez

Please do, because I'd like to disucss this.

[michaelflanagansf]

Please do, because I'd like to disucss this.

Done.

[CellarDweller115]

Thanks Michael!

[BayCityJohn]

CEO Killed at Gay Cruising Spot


Credit Union of Atlanta CEO DeFarra Gaymon was shot and killed by a police officer in Newark, New Jersey last week after allegedly propositioning the officer at a gay cruising area.

http://advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/07/20/CEO_Killed_at_Gay_Cruising_Spot/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/nyregion/21newark.html?_r=3&src=me&ref=nyregion

[michaelflanagansf]

Deadly attack on gay man 'like Clockwork Orange scene'

A gay man was subjected to homophobic taunts before being punched and stamped to death in London's Trafalgar Square.

Ian Baynham, 62, of Beckenham, Kent, was with a friend when three teenagers attacked him outside South Africa House in September, the Old Bailey heard.

One witness said the attack, in which he was punched and stamped, was like a "scene from the film Clockwork Orange".

Joel Alexander, 19, Rachel Burke and Ruby Thomas, both 18, have all pleaded not guilty to manslaughter.

Mr Alexander, of Thornton Heath, south London, Miss Burke, of Three Oaks, East Sussex, and Miss Thomas, of Lichfield, Staffordshire, also deny violent disorder.

continues:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8630290.stm

[tfferg]

Sydney police seem blind to homophobic hate crime

b]Police investigate Sydney gay bashing [/b]
Paul Bibby
August 14, 2010

A prominent gay rights activist was among four men allegedly assaulted by a lone attacker on Oxford Street in central Sydney on Monday night, in what the activist believes was a homophobic hate crime.

Police have charged a 34-year-old male with assault occasioning actual bodily harm in relation the attack on activist Simon Margan - the co-convenor of Community Action on Homophobia - and three other men.

The attack left Mr Margan bleeding on the ground with a severely fractured left eye-socket. Police will allege it was one of four separate assaults by the same man at different locations along the famous party strip.

(snip)

Mr Margan said the same man had made violent homophobic comments toward him a few days earlier as he put up posters promoting a gay rights rally taking place a Sydney Town Hall today.

"Every time I turned around he was there ranting about eradicating gays on Oxford St. It was more full-on than you usually get, so when I saw him on Monday night I was really scared he was going to do something extreme."

The 34-year-old male was denied bail to appear in Central local court on Monday, where police will allege that he was affected by alcohol. They also will present video footage from CCTV cameras on Oxford Street as evidence.

A police media spokesman said that there was "no indication that the men's sexuality was involved [as a motive] in the attack", but Mr Margan said he was in no doubt about his attacker's motive.

He said gay hate crimes were not uncommon on Oxford Street, but were only occasionally reported.

(snip)

The Town Hall rally is part of a nation-wide action calling for marriage equality.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/police-investigate-sydney-gay-bashing-20100813-123fa.html

[michaelflanagansf]

^^^  What are the laws like in Australia, Tony, regarding civil actions?  Can they sue this creep for damages?

This stuff really does wear on you over time, doesn't it?

[tfferg]

^^^  What are the laws like in Australia, Tony, regarding civil actions?  Can they sue this creep for damages?

This stuff really does wear on you over time, doesn't it?

Don't know, Michael. I'm guessing it would come under NSW State laws.
It does wear on us.
I've only visited Oxford St briefly a few times - it has never struck me as particularly gay or friendly. I think it's certainly not safe.