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Gay Wyo. Student Dies From Beating
By E.N. Smith
Associated Press Writer
Monday, October 12,
1998; 3:37 p.m. EDT
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) -- A gay
University of Wyoming student died today,
five days after he was found
pistol-whipped and lashed to a fence post
in an attack denounced nationwide as a
hate crime.
Matthew Shepard, 21, died while on life
support, said the head of Poudre Valley
Hospital, Rulon Stacey. Shepard had been
in a coma since bicyclists found him
tethered to the post in near-freezing
temperatures outside Laramie, Wyo., on
Wednesday.
"The family was grateful they did not
have to make a decision regarding whether
or not to continue life support for their
son," Stacey said. "He came into the
world premature and left the world
premature and they are most grateful for
the time they had to spend with
Matthew.
Police have said robbery was the primary
motive for the attack. But gay rights
groups and others assailed the beating
and called on Wyoming legislators to
adopt laws to deter crimes against
homosexuals.
"We are calling on all the people to
have a renewed discussion to find out
what we might do to strengthen our
laws," Gov. Jim Geringer said today. The
first-term Republican, up for re-election
next month, hasn't pushed hate crime
legislation in the past, but he said
today, "I'm open to any suggestion that
we might bring to our Legislature."
In Washington, White House press
secretary Joe Lockhart said today that
President Clinton was horrified by the
attack and spoke with Shepard's family
Saturday. He renewed the president's call
for "some kind of a national standard,
law, on hate crimes."
Before Shepard's death, Russell Arthur
Henderson, 21, and Aaron James McKinney,
22, had been charged with attempted
murder, kidnapping and aggravated
robbery. Their girlfriends -- Chasity
Vera Pasley, 20, and Kristen Leann Price,
18 -- were charged with being accessories
after the fact.
Sgt. Rob DeBree of the Albany County
sheriff's office, a lead investigator in
the case, confirmed today the charges
would be upgraded to first-degree murder.
He gave no details.
McKinney's girlfriend, Ms. Price, and his
father, Bill McKinney, told The Denver
Post that the two men never set out to
kill the 5-foot-2, 105-pound Shepard.
Instead, they said the two wanted to get
back at Shepard for making passes at
McKinney in front of his friends Tuesday
night in a campus bar.
"I guess they (the people in the bar)
knew that Matt Shepard was gay and maybe
it got around that Aaron was gay or
something," Ms. Price said in a story
published Sunday. "Later on, Aaron did
say he told him he was gay just to rob
him, because he wanted to take his money
for embarrassing him."
The elder McKinney said there was no
excuse for the crime but the story had
been blown out of proportion.
"Had this been a heterosexual these two
boys decided to take out and rob, this
never would have made the national
news," he told the Post. "Now my son is
guilty before he's even had a trial."
Friends of Henderson and McKinney said
they were surprised by the allegations.
"They were quiet," said Heather
Dunmire, 20, of nearby Rock River. "I
wouldn't have expected them to do that. I
never would expect another human to do
that."
Henderson and Ms. Pasley live in a rural,
windswept trailer park amid weeds, engine
parts, fishing tackle and barking dogs. A
neighbor, John Gillham, 21, said the
couple generally kept to themselves.
About a thousand people attended a
candlelight vigil Sunday night near the
University of Wyoming campus to show
their support for Shepard, who was a
political science major.
"We are saddened, heartsick," said the
university's president, Philip Dubois.
"All of us I would imagine are haunted
by the thought of a terribly battered
young man with his future erased.
"It is almost as sad to see individuals
and groups around this country react to
this event by stereotyping an entire
community, if not an entire state."
Shepard's parents said in a statement
released before his death that he would
"emphasize he does not want the horrible
actions of a few very disturbed
individuals to mar the fine reputations
of Laramie or the university."
Shepard left Wyoming as a teen to finish
high school in Switzerland. A friend said
he had to overcome concerns about how his
sexual orientation would be accepted
before he returned to Wyoming -- which is
nicknamed the Equality State because it
was the first state to let women vote,
serve on juries and hold public office --
for college.
"He had a lot of the same fears other
people have coming into a small
community," said Walt Boulden, a
graduate student. "When he left Wyoming
he had just started dealing with being
gay. So he was very concerned about the
attitudes when he first came back.
"But he really felt at home and
comfortable here. He felt this was the
place to be right now."
Copyright 1998 The Associated Press
[used without permission]
404 responses total.
there are several detailed accounts of what happened to mr. shepard available. basically, he was taken to the edge of town in a pickup truck, bashed repeatedly in the head with the butt of a handgun, tied to the fence post more or less cruciform, and left there. he was found about 18 hours later. reading all these accounts has made me so angry that i can't think of anything logical to say. agora 54 <---> gay 37
there is nothing logical to say to this... so how about we crucify the perps and see how they like it?
Hmm. Interesting.
Gee. Makes the Klan seem kind & civilized by comparison.
Oh, god forbid someone assume something that wasn't true about the guy he made a pass at. Nobody kills people that make a pass if they're of the *opposite* sex. Sheesh. When are these small-minded, insecure, cavemen going to become extinct?
What disgusts me about events like this is how amazingly rabid white straight Americans seem to get at even the thought of any kind of interpersonal interplay with a "gay" person. This kind of reaction is not unusual, either. At the Ann Arbor Film Festival this year, there was a fantastic documentary on this kind of reaction, through interviews with about 5 prisoners doing time for killing gay folks. Even in prison there wasn't any remorse or regret at the thought of killing a gay person, after they'd made some approach at them.
Gay men must be seen as an enormous threat to such males. Why? They know they have a great deal to lose for murder - what can be so overwhelming that they don't stop to think (of course, such murderers probably must often not stop to think).
After the incident on Jenny Jones, Jonathan Schmitz reportedly said "Now everyone, even Grandma, is going to think I'm a homosexual." Yeah? Well, now everyone, even grandma, thinks you're a murderer. To me, at least, that sounds SO much worse.
This is certainly a horrible situation. I'm horrified at people doing this sort of thing to somebody just because he was gay. I was also horrified by the quote from one of the perpetrators' fathers, saying that this was being blown out of proportion. At the same time, though, I've been listening to politicians, from the President on down, siezing on this as a reason to call for strengthening "hate crime" legislation, which they say is needed to prevent this sort of thing, and while part of me supports the concept behind that, I'm really not sure how much useful that will do. Would this situation be any better if it had been a random act of violence? If you're the victim of such an attack, do you really care if it's because you're gay, or black, or just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Since the perps are already being charged with first degree murder, which tends to have maximum sentences of either life in prison or death, depending on the state, are additional laws going to be a detterent when existing laws aren't? Or even if these laws won't do much to actually stop people from doing this sort of thing, does the symbolism involved make hate crime laws worth it anyway?
The parrot is still dead. Smells of politics to me.
A telling quote from the article: "Police have said robbery was the primary motive for the attack." Since when does robbery entail the kind of violence that was done here? I think this tells us something about the attitude of the police.
Robbery often entails murder in order to silence witnesses. This wasn't the case here, where the victim was left alive but in jeopardy. It was an act of extreme cruelty. r The advantage of hate-crime legislation is that the motive is sanctioned. Motive is often in question in charging and sentencing.
Like scg, I don't understand what "hate crime legislation" will do, exactly. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "the motive is sanctioned", Rane, since a law can't make it illegal to hate someone. Is there some legal concept of "admissibble motives", or something like that?
re #6: What disgusts me about events like this is how amazingly rabid white straight Americans seem to get at even the thought of any kind of interpersonal interplay with a "gay" person. I'm a straight white American, as a matter of fact, I'd guess that I'm pretty much your average straight white American. I wouldn't do something like this, and hey, I bet your average straight black American wouldn't do this either...hmmm...I"d also be willing to bet that your average straight purple dinosaur American wouldn't pull this kind of shit either! What I want to know is why any statement like that had to be made? One thing I don't get is why peoiple don't seem to realize that superfiscal things like race have nothing to do woth something like this! That some people are just down right evil, and that's why thing like this happen. Sorry,but "...how amazingly rabid white straight Americans seem to get..." re4ally bugged me...I'll shut up now
I read an interesting study a while back where they interviewed a bunch of guys to get their reactions to gay persons, etc, then had the subjects watch homoerotic films while hooked up to devices that measured their, mmm, excitement. There was a decided correlation between those who expressed extreme hatred towards homosexuals and those who were turned on by the films (that is, those who want to beat up gays for being gay are the ones who got off on the gay films). So those such as the murderers in the incident at hand are betraying more about themselves then they realize...
Re 15. This has been known for many years. Ask any mental health professional.
Although, since these people are presumably already feeling quite threatened by the situation, pointing that out to them probably won't help matters.
"We hate most in others what we fear most in ourselves."
- i don't know...
This is one of those statements I have seen and felt to be more significantly
true the less one believes it to be...
is it just me... or d'ya just have ta love this perfect world we have...
It is not illegal to hate someone, but what I said was that motive is important in *charging and sentencing* - that is, after a crime has been committed. There was a discussion of this, incidentally, on NPR today. The person they interviewed pointed this out, and gave examples of where hate-crime legislation greatly reduced "hate crimes" in some jurisdictions. What the legislation does is provide another basis for judging the crime. For example, if someone assaults someone else because (say) the person bumped into them, the assault could be attributed in court to "sudden flash of anger", or a misunderstanding, or too much coffee, it is likely that the assailant (if only minor damage was caused) would receive a moderately mild rebuke or sentence.. However if it can be demonstrated by word or deed that the reason for the assault was the other person's color, or religion, or sexual preference, then there is established a purposeful motive, and the charge and punishment may be higher.
Well, I like sleeping with men, but watching a woman and man in a porno doesn't turn me on in the slightest. Therefore, I don't hold much confidence in that study.
#15 seems to associate homosexual tendencies with violent behavior. #20: "Hate crimes" is a hot button tag, nothing more. To me, the seriousness of #0 is that a young man was killed. The people who did it committed murder. It makes no difference to me at all that they did it as a "hate crime". If they did it to protest bad roads, as a school project, or to promote the fertilization needs of nearly extinct flowers, it's still murder.
#21> The study is based on physiological responses, not (consciously) psychological ones... that is, increased hormonal activity, respiration, etc. We're generally poorly equipped to guage physiological arousal at these levels... it's not an issue of what gets us wet or hard, necessarily, but rather an issue of what gets our lower brains working. In short, you may not be psychologically turned on by porno, but let's strap you to a machine and see what it says (and it may well agree with you, but it might not). Also, it's also generally held in psychological circles that women are aroused by text, men by pictures, so it's not entirely appropriate for a woman to dismiss a study of male sexual reactions to stimuli based on her own experiences.
Sure, it's still murder. It is also a hate crime. Protesting bad roads, doing school projects, and fertilizing flowers do not perforce interfer with the life, liberty or pursuit of happiness of others. Hate that is acted upon does. Society should find ways to promote tolerance and cooperation. It is certainly better than promoting hate. That said, I would agree that it would be better to reduce hate through education and (what used to be called) rearing. It is usually too late to modify attitudes once they are established. Putting some barriers against acting on those anti-social attitudes is still worthwhile, in my opinion.
Re: #14: There are some that would hold that Barney *is* evil. But if they killed Barney, as expoused in the usenet group, wouldn't they be guilty of a hate crime, for singling out a purple dinosaur american? I think that we should also protect Barney from this kind of discrimintory hate! And then people with freckles, male pattern baldness, ...
People who look like penii.
The problem I have is that the phrase "hate crime" can be used as an inflammatory tag to railroad people into punishments they don't deserve. It can be (and, if I recall correctly, has been) used as a political tool. Hate crimes are terrible, along with any other kind of crime. However, using that phrase tends to make people begin to lose sight of facts.
Brighn - I have to agree with you. Reading erotic lit turns me on, but pornos make me sick.
Question related to this topic: My wife said that K. Couric on the Today show implied that James Dobson was culpable for this incident, an accusation that gained Mr. Dobson rebuttal time on the Today show. I have searched the Web and sever newspaper archives, but I can't find anything to substantiate this incident. Anyone know something about this?
and in further news of the nasty people in the world: Anti-gay church plans demonstration at funeral Meanwhile, the Rev. Fred Phelps, the leader of a Topeka, Kansas, church whose members regularly engage in anti-homosexual picketing, said he was planning a demonstration at Shepard's funeral. Gov. Jim Geringer said he cannot stop Phelps from coming, but said precautions would be taken to make sure Friday's services are not interrupted. Geringer said Phelps' group is "just flat not welcome. What we don't need is a bunch of wing nuts coming in." Phelps said he had asked for protection from the Wyoming governor's office because his church had received at least seven death threats since word spread his pickets would be going to Laramie. "We're not going to tolerate any violence from these homosexuals," Phelps said. "They are the most violent people in the world. Here they are talking about what happened to this poor boy, and they turn around and make death threats against us."
Yuck.
Doesn't sound like a normal church to me.
"wing nuts"? Sounds like a "hate" church. Maybe it has a connection with Milosovec.
Why would a church protest a funeral for crying out loud?
Re #20: So are you saying, Rane, that there is some legal concept of a "purposeful motive"? I am pretty foggy on the finer legal points here. If this is not a legal term, then do you just mean that there are certain motives that a judge/jury will find credible, and others that they won't? If so I'm not clear on what a law would do to change that.
The difference between first and second degree murder is motive (or lack thereof). Manslaughter is murder without motive. There is some slight difference between manslaughter and wrongful-death, which lies in motive.
Here is my stance on hate crimes: Hate crimes have two elements: The crime itself, and the underlying hate-based motivation. If the crime itself is illegal already, making it illegal again is redundant; if it isn't already illegal, it shouldn't be *just* because of the motivation. The underlying motivation is protected by the First Amendment. Therefore we shouldn't have specific "hate crime" laws. When a member of the KKK burns a cross on the lawn of somebody they don't like, they're doing the following: (1) Destroying property (2) Recklessly endangering themselves, their victims, and innocent bystanders (3) Trespassing (4) Threatening/extorting (5) Saying, "I don't like you." (1)-(4) are all illegal independent of the motivation of the act. (5) is protected by the First Amendment. (For those who are confused by the statement that "if the crime isn't already illegal...", I'm referring to hate crimes that are not illegal indepent of the hate crime legislation. Things like, for instance, shouting at a group of gays, "Hey, you faggots! Go away!")
The homocide laws, as I understand them, are: First Degree Murder: intentional and premeditated Felony Murder: a death happens as a result of another felony Second Degree Murder: intentional, but not planned ahead of time. First Degree Manslaughter: intentional, "in the heat of passion." Second Degree Manslaughter: accidental, but preventable. Justifiable homocide: intentional, but justified. Not a crime. Excusable Homocide: accidental and unavoidable. Also not a crime. Felony Murder would cover cases such as a bank robbery where the robbers may not have planned to kill anybody, but killed somebody anyway. Felony murder gets treated as first degree murder. First Degree Manslaughter covers cases where somebody gets very angry at somebody else, and kills them. The example given in my high school law class would be where somebody comes home and finds his wife in bed with another man, and kills one or both of them (although maybe that would now be considered domestic violence and taken more seriously). The idea there is that if it's done in immediate anger it's assumed to been less malicious, or something like that. Second Degree Manslaughter would cover somebody who did something by accident that should have been avoidable, and caused a death. Deaths in traffic accidents often fall into this category. Justifiable homocide covers things like self defense. It's not illegal, assuming you can convince the police or judge or jury that that was what was going on. Excusable Homocide covers situations such as somebody driving, obeying all traffic laws, when somebody jumped two feet in front of their car and they couldn't stop in time. Again, it's not illegal. At least, that's my memory of things from my high school law class. Hopefully one of the lawyers here will jump in and correct me where this is wrong. I suppose what hate crime legislation could do is move something like this case, where the people who did it are claiming to have been angry at their victim for making a pass at them, from something that could be argued to have been in the heat of passion, and therefore first degree manslaughter, to something that would clearly be Felony Murder.
#37 is pretty close to how I see things, too.
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