I Do Not Understand and I Pray I Never Will

I do not understand this and I pray I never will. I do not understand what type of person or people could do such a thing. I do not understand how a police officer could condone such an outrage. From this news report, from personally seeing the New York Police Department in action and from seeing the Fair Lawn, NJ Police Department in action, I do understand that the police are unwilling to enforce hate crime laws when the victim is a gay male.
Gay Puerto Rican Teen Decapitated, Dismembered, and Burned

http://www.towleroad.com/2009/11/gay-puerto-rican-teen-decapitated-dismembered-and-burned.html

Over the weekend the brutalized body of gay teen George Steven Lopez Mercado was found by the side of a road in Puerto Rico. The police investigator suggested that he deserved what he got because of the "type of lifestyle" he was leading.

Mercado According to an iReport by Chrisopher Pagan: "On November 14 the body of a gay 19 year old was found a few miles away from the town in which he was residing in called Caguas. He was a very well known person in the gay community of Puerto Rico, and very loved. He was found on the site of an isolated road in the city of Cayey, he was partially burned, decapitated, and dismembered, both arms, both legs, and the torso. This has caused a huge reaction from the gay community here, but its a difficult situation. Never in the history of Puerto Rico has a murder been classified as a hate crime. Even though we have to follow federal mandates and laws, many of the laws in which are passed in the USA such as Obama’s new bill, do not always directly get practiced in Puerto Rico. The police agent that is handling this case said on a public televised statement that 'people who lead this type of lifestyle need to be aware that this will happen'. As If the boy murdered Jorge Steven Lopez was asking to get killed..."

Jorge Here's a report on the murder (in Spanish) from PrimeraHora.com. Said activist Pedro Julio Serrano: "It is inconceivable that the investigating officer suggests that the victim deserved his fate, like a woman deserves rape for wearing a short skirt. We demand condemnation of this investigator and demand that Superintendente Figueroa Sancha replace him with someone capable of investigating this case without prejudice." (my translation, please suggest a better one if you can).

The Need For a Federal Hate Crimes Law - Yet Again

At the end of June Fort Worth, TX police and TABC officers raided a gay bar. They beat one patron so badly he was hospitalized with life threatening injuries. The police, when caught, publicly lied about the raid, and used the infamous gay panic defense to justify their acts of violence.

In mid September, police raided a gay bar in Atlanta, GA. Again, the police violated the Constitutional rights of the people in the bar. Again, the police used the infamous gay panic defense to justify their violent conduct.

Does anyone think that a hate crime against the LGBTI community in Fort Worth or Atlanta would receive a proper investigation? How many other raids happened this summer that did not make it into a news report? How many other police departments (Fair Lawn, NJ for instance) have incompetent police departments that refuse to even acknowledge a hate crime has taken place?

Year after year after year, Congress has no nothing, nothing to protect the LGBTI citizens of this country. It is time for the President and Congress to make it a federal crime for local, gay-bashing, police departments to engage in violence against the LGBTI community. It is time to make bashing the LGBTI community a crime.



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Details about the September Atlanta, GA raid can be found at:
http://www.sovo.com/2009/9-14/news/localnews/10607.cfm?CFID=37445236&CFTOKEN=77612917
http://www.bilerico.com/2009/09/there_was_a_protest_this.php
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/jaysays/2009/09/24/Closet-Talk-The-Eagle-Bar-Raid-with-Nicholas-and-Johnnie