Another Gay Bashing// Perp Gets Charge for Harassment- No Hate Crime Left on the Shelf?

“Faggot is a punch. Dyke is hitting someone,” Eugene Lovendusky, Queer Rising (Facebook, Twitter) co-founder, said. The first blow of gay hate crimes start with the
verbal assaults, then it can turn violent.

The photo above and the quote belongs to Eugene Lovendusky.  He is known as a founder of Queer Rising in Facebook and Twitter.  He was talking in that picture on a street interview by channel 7 about a gay bashing. He is well educated about violence against gays.  As he well says that the bashing starts with the verbal abuse. This is so true and after that comes the punches or the shot in the face like it happened last week.

Well this weekend it was Eugene’s turn to face a coward gay basher here in New York.  As I mentioned before these cowards think that New York is a punishment free zone.

This is how serious gay bashing is seen by the police: you have more chances of getting arrested in a public bathroom than if you are a basher in NYC’ a John, a Prostitute.

 Going to the  public bathroom can get you arrested in NY. Say you look to see to the guy next to you to see who bigger or nice he is at the stall next to you or at the guy just standing there by the wall. The guy at the stall looks like he is showing it and proud of it.   Chances is that that good looking guy proud of his junk is a vice cop and you will be arrested for solicitation. What ? you didn’t solicited ?  listening to people that have gone through that experience, particularly so called straight men, they say they never propositioned. But is the officer’s word that has the validity, he is a law enforcer.

Arrests of  bashing in New York are very few but what’s fewer is cases that get charge or tried as hate crimes. The reason for it is because the mayor has not given the commissioner the go ahead to go after the bashers. There is no excuse. Gay bashing is not new and it usually more prevalent on the bigger cities. You’ve had a serious problem in Seattle, LA and San Francisco. But in those cities the local governments have taken a serious approach to it. They have managed to control it. In New York City you get sirens, police cars and what seems like a lot of words and noise but that is all. 

We know what it takes!  They have even passed a law here called 'Hate Crime’ Law. On most assaults on a gay person the media and the police call out the name of  the law of Hate crime but that is all. The only thing is that very few get charge with it. Of those that get charge by it they probably wont get prosecuted. I’ve heard excuses that the law is too tough and a jury wont convict to the law is too lax and it doesn’t make a difference. 

Both equations are wrong. If we are going to say about a killer, we wont charge him with murder because he will go for life to jail and juries don’t like to send people to jail for life. So we will charge him with 3rd degree that way we will convict him and he’ll do less time but he’ll do some time instead of none. For us to have that discussion is to be crazy!  What a way to run a store!

But the truth is that people that commit hate crimes don’t get  convicted and the reason for that is that they don’t get tried in the first place. If after all the review that goes on and second guessing about a hate crime, wether to charge or not to charge or tried or not tried, if the DA’s office decides to keep the charge sometime along the way before trial the charges will be plead down with a guilty plea to a lesser crime. 

Eugene Lovendusky, 28, said he was leaving a club on 42nd Street near 8th Avenue with his boyfriend and a friend about 3:20 a.m. when they were approached by a group of teenagers.

“They were yelling f----t,” he said, and added that his first reaction was to stand up for himself. “I said you can’t call me that.”

Manuel Riquelme, 19, of East Harlem allegedly punched him in the right side of his jaw, knocking the glasses off his face.

When his friend stepped in to help him, Lovendusky said that one assailant asked, “Do you want to be next, f----t?”

He called 911, and said that police arrived quickly. They canvassed the area, and quickly spotted Riquelme and the other teens at a pizzeria on 40th and 9th Avenue.

Police busted Riquelme at the pizzeria, and charged him with assault as a hate crime, as well as harassment.

He was arraigned on a charge of second-degree aggravated harassment, and no bail was set.

The assault comes in the wake of a spike in anti-gay violence this year, including the murder of Mark Carson, 32, in Greenwich Village on May 18.

Second degree aggravated Harassment is the charge. The guy wont do a day in jail and this will keep on going until the community decided it’s had enough. 

How do you make the city government, DA’s and the police take this type of crime seriously? 

 You let them know. Write a letter, a blog make a phone call, what ever it takes.

So here we are we report on another gay bashing in which is not a hate crime the perp is been charged with aggravated Harassment and even though the police caught the perp, not much will happen. Next time he might go further. He will do one year probation and in cases without a prior the case can even asked to be sponged, like it never happened.

We have the government we deserve. Like people the complaint about congress but vote for the congress representatives. It becomes just like in politics a game and a vicious circle. 

 {Adam Gonzalez}