From ecl@mtgzy.att.com Fri Jan 15 09:38:57 1993 Return-Path: Received: from rpi.edu by mail1.its.rpi.edu (4.1/SMHUB40); id AA28333; Fri, 15 Jan 93 09:38:56 EST for buckmr Received: from att.att.com (att-out.att.com) by rpi.edu (4.1/SMHUB41); id AA21139; Fri, 15 Jan 93 09:38:42 EST for buckmr@rpi.edu Message-Id: <9301151438.AA21139@rpi.edu> Date: Fri, 15 Jan 93 09:36 EST From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070) To: buckmr@rpi.edu Subject: Hate Crimes Status: U .H 1 "Hate Crimes" .H 2 "Statistics for 1991" .BL .LI .I Outlines (Chicago Gay/Lesbian Newspaper), April, 1992, p. 18 .R .P There was a 31 percent increase in anti-gay/lesbian hate crimes in 1991, as reported to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force by agencies in five cities. The 1,822 incidents represent only a small fraction of the hate-related crimes committed against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and those perceived as such in this country. Even in the five cities tracking anti-gay/lesbian hate crimes, many incidents go unreported. .P Chicago, one of the five cities in the NGLTF "Anti-Gay/Lesbian Violence, Victimization and Defamation in 1991" report, had the smallest increase over 1990 figures -- six percent. A total of 210 hate-crime incidents were reported to Chicago's Horizons Community Services, involving 319 survivors (231 male, 81 female, six unspecified). .P The Minneapolis/St. Paul area recorded the highest increase -- 202 percent (338 incidents), followed by a 42 percent jump in Boston (209 incidents), 17 percent in New York City (592 incidents), and 11 percent in San Francisco (473 incidents). .P Documented anti-gay murders more than doubled, from three in 1990 to eight last year. Physical assaults ("gay bashings") jumped 15 percent (to 775 incidents) and acts of alleged police abuse rose 29 percent (to 146 cases). Vandalism cases jumped 51 percent to 125 cases, and threats and harassment incidents numbered 1,255. There were also 52 incidents of robbery and extortion, six bomb threats and four acts of arson reported. .P Kevin Berrill, NGLTF violence-project director, said the rise in anti-gay incidents is attributed to a variety of factors, including greater outreach to victims by local agencies and greater levels of reporting by victims. "It is likely, however, that the rising numbers indicate the problem has intensified. A major factor has to be the increasingly violent backlash against growing gay visibility -- a visibility that ironically has garnered additional political power for gays," Berrill said. .P Of the national totals, 2,117 individuals were involved -- 1,634 were male (77 percent), 450 were female (21 percent), 12 percent transsexual (one percent) [sic], and 21 were "unknown." A total of 88 gay and lesbian institutions were also targeted. [In addition,] among incidents documented last year, 223 involved AIDS-related epithets or were directed against people with AIDS or people perceived to have AIDS, NGLTF reports. .P "Although only 362 anti-gay crimes were reported to local police in all five cities in 1991, the figure is 41 percent higher than the number documented in 1990," NGLTF stated. .P ...The NGLTF report is most powerful when listing examples of anti-gay/lesbian crimes, including the vicious physical attacks which led to murder in such cities as Houston, San Diego, Minneapolis, Bellmore, NY, Atlanta and Superior, WI. .DL .LI On June 2 in Superior [WI], a gay man was stabbed to death by an assailant who later told police, "I wanted to kill this fag. My whole life is devoted to killing faggots and child molesters ... They spread AIDS." .LI Outside a gay nightclub in Houston July 4, a group of 10 young men armed with wooden clubs and a knife attacked three gay men, killing one and injuring another. .LI On Aug. 7 in Los Angeles, an African-American lesbian was called anti-gay slurs, assaulted, and menaced with a gun by a man who forced his way into her home. .LE .LE .H 2 "Statistics for 1990" .BL .LI .I The New York Times, November 24, 1991, p. 6E .R .P Given the failure of many law-enforcement agencies to collect statistics, it is difficult to know how often people have been victimized merely because they were homosexual. But gay-rights advocates hope that the Federal Hate Crime Statistics Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush last year, will start giving a better picture of how widespread such crimes are... .P The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has been collecting such data from local homosexual victim-assistance groups in six major metropolitan areas. In 1990 the group said, a total of 1,588 incidents were reported -- 42 percent more than in the previous year -- in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis and St. Paul. The incidents included harassment, intimidation, assault, arson, police abuse and murder. The group said that while some of the increase stems from a greater willingness by victims to report such events, such large increases indicate that the severity of the problem has grown. .P Yet in those cities, the police said they received reports of only 265 anti-gay crimes in 1990 (though this represents an increase of 70 percent over 1989). Mr. Bray [spokesperson for the NGLTF] argued that this figure -- less than a fifth of the total reported to the homosexual groups -- indicated reluctance on the part of many to go to the authorities for fear of "being re-victimized by the police and the criminal-justice system." .LE .H 2 "Houston Sting" .BL .LI .I The Advocate, Sept. 24, 1991, p. 52. .R .sp In a move that attracted media attention nationwide, the [Houston] police department launched a sting operation on Aug. 2 [1991] in which police officers pose as gay men, singly or in couples, on the streets of Montrose in an attempt to catch bashers. The sting, called Operation Vice Versa, resulted in 15 arrests in the two weeks that it ran. Police officials said they will continue the sting on randomly chosen nights of the week. .LI .I New York Times, Aug. 9, 1991, p. A9 .R .sp To quell a tide of violence directed against homosexuals, Houston police officers have taken to the streets of a downtown neighborhood dressed as potential victims, with results that have startled even gay leaders who for years have called for increased protection. Since the decoy program, thought to be the first of its kind in the country, was begun last Friday in the Montrose neighborhood, an area long troubled by "gay bashing" incidents, 3 undercover officers have been attacked, and 13 people have been arrested. Two officers posing as a gay couple were sprayed with Chemical Mace on Friday night hours after the program began, and another undercover officer was beaten with a baseball bat early Monday. The police said both attacks were by groups of young men from outside the neighborhood who thought their victims were homosexuals... .sp But the decoy program, which homosexuals here helped the police develop, arose in response to the July 4 beating and stabbing death of 27-year-old banker, Paul Broussard ... The Houston Police Department fell under heavy criticism from gay and other human rights groups following the incident, especially after homicide detectives initially said there was no evidence the attack was a hate crime, a statement they later retracted. More than 1000 neighborhood residents, organized by the group Queer Nation, rallied in the Montrose on July 13, blocking traffic for several hours and chanting at the police. .sp Harper Wilson, the Federal Bureau of Identification's chief of uniform crime reporting, said the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990 required the 16,000 police departments who file reports to his agency to classify attacks on homosexuals as hate crimes. .LE .H 2 "Lesbigay Neighborhood Safety Patrols" .BL .LI .I The New York Times, April 7, 1992 (by Don Terry) .R .P 'Pink Angels' Battle Anti-Gay Crime: CHICAGO, April 6 -- Near the stroke of midnight every Friday and Saturday, a group that includes a social worker, a newlywed and a former Air Force sergeant gathers in a circle for a solemn pep talk before heading out onto the restless streets. "Let's stay alert out there," one of them said Friday night at they locked arms. "I want to go home in one piece." For the next four hours and several miles, the group, a mostly homosexual anti-crime patrol known as the Pink Angels, walked unarmed up the neon-soaked streets and down the dark alleys of a largely gay and lesbian section of Chicago's North Side, the scene of a recent shooting that the police said was motivated by anti-gay bias. Dressed in black berets and jackets, they watched for hecklers in passing cars and jotted down their license plate numbers, exchanged information with the police and checked for trouble in the bars along North Halsted Street, the soul of the homosexual community here. .P 'Seeing a Lot of Other Things' -- "The Pink Angels are performing a service maybe citizens in general should do," said Sgt. Anthony J. Scalise of the police department's civil rights section. "They're taking more of an interest in their community. But they're not only doing a good job keeping the hate crimes down, they're seeing a lot of other things and passing the information along to us." .P Graunk Enzenberger, 30 years old, was on patrol Friday night. "I think people are a lot more afraid of being out at night," he said. "We're trying to ease some of those fears." The Pink Angels represent a small but growing movement of homosexuals who are forming unarmed groups to patrol and protect their neighborhoods, from the hills of San Francisco to the narrow streets of Greenwich Village. It is a movement born of frustration and anger at increasing anti-gay violence and, in some cases, the response of city and police officials. Last year, according to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, the number of anti-gay incidents, ranging from harassment to homicide, was up 31 percent in six cities -- Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Boston and Minneapolis-St. Paul -- with large homosexual populations and organizations. .P 'Still Cutting-Edge Stuff' -- The patrol groups are kind of sprouting up around the country but it's still cutting-edge stuff; they're still only a few," said Robert Bray, a spokesman for the national task force. "They have arisen in the last three years or so as the level of gay-bashing has skyrocketed." New York City and San Francisco have the oldest and largest patrol groups. Houston also has a patrol. .P The Pink Angels were formed about six months ago, and never have the group's members felt more necessary. Not far from their basement headquarters, Ron Cayot, a gay man, was shot and critically wounded on March 31 after he and a friend were confronted by a carload of men who had been insulting them, the police said. A week later, Mr. Cayot is still fighting for his life in a local hospital. "We shouldn't have to worry about getting beaten up or killed just because we're walking down the street," said Wendy Rhein, 23 years old, the president of the Pink Angels. "That's why we're out here. We're not going to back down anymore." .P The Pink Angels have about 50 members, but only 35 are willing to patrol. Because they are so few, they patrol only on weekends, so they were not on the street at the time of the shooting. The Pink Angels are not strictly homosexual. Ms. Rhein said the group includes a rainbow of sexuality and race: blacks, whites, heterosexuals, homosexuals and bisexuals. "We're learning a lot from each other," she said. Last Friday, the six-member patrol, two men and four women, checked their radios and flashlights before splitting up into pairs and heading into the uncertain night. Two other members stayed in their headquarters in the basement of an apartment building to operate the radio and, if necessary, to call the police. .P 'Danger in a Hurry' -- The Pink Angels remain in constant communication with the dispatchers, because an uneventful patrol can turn dangerous in a hurry. Not long ago, a four-member patrol was confronted in an alley by up to 20 men, many armed with baseball bats. The men were tapping the ground with their bats like a scene out of "A Clockwork Orange." The patrol braced for an attack as one member radioed for help. The men left without incident when they heard the police coming. "We have a very close relationship with the police," Ms. Rhein said. "They've been very helpful and supportive." .P On Fridays, Peigi Molumby, 21, who sells secondhand clothes, takes a turn patrolling North Halsted Street. She is married to one of the dispatchers. "I do this because I think it needs to be done," she said. "For me it's an issue of people being hurt for loving each other." Ms. Molumby joined the group a few weeks ago. Then her husband joined because, she said, "otherwise his Friday nights would be very lonely." Her patrol partner last Friday was a lesbian, Jackie Phares, 32, who said she had joined because several of "my friends have been bashed and I'm tired of taking the abuse." .P 'Flashing a Victory Sign' -- As they walked down the block, a man in dreadlocks hurried out of a bar, disco music pouring into the street from the open door. He flashed a victory sign and said, "Thank you, Pink Angels." A few minutes later, a man leaned out of the window of a moving car, his blond hair blowing in the wind. "Sissy," he shouted as the car zipped away. "I've been called 'fag' so many times that it doesn't bother me anymore," said Friday's patrol leader, a former Air Force sergeant who would give only his Pink Angels code name, Saladin, "because I don't want to get fired." Saladin, who is 29, said he was in the Air Force for eight years and hated to leave but felt he had to because "I was forced to lead too constricted a life." His military background showed clearly in his stiff posture and his polished combat boots. .P 'Averting a Sacrifice' -- Two weeks ago, Saladin said, a patrol came across a group of white men trying to force a black man into the back of a van. They were saying something about Satan. The patrol ran toward the van, yelling and shining their flashlights toward it, and the men sped off, leaving the black man behind. "He was grateful," Saladin said. "He thought he was going to be sacrificed." .P As a 19-year-old member the group calls Kidd stood on a street corner, watching for trouble at a nearby bar, a woman approached her. .br "What are the hats for?" .br "We're the Pink Angels," replied Kidd, the patrol's youngest member. .br "Y'all gay, right?" .br "Some of us." .br "You trying to protect gay people?" .br "Everybody," Kidd said. "We're trying to help the whole neighborhood." .br "God bless you," the woman said. "We need a lot more of that." .LE