Significant acts of violence against LGBT people

This is a list of notable incidents of homophobic violence, e.g. attacks on victims thought by the attacker to be lesbian or gay and attacked for homophobic motives.

See list of unlawfully killed transgender people for homicides of transgender people.

Contents 1 Australia 2 Brazil 3 Canada 4 Croatia 5 France 6 Iraq 7 Ireland 8 Israel 9 Jamaica 10 Martinique 11 New Zealand 12 Norway 13 Portugal 14 Serbia 15 Sierra Leone 16 South Africa 17 Spain 18 St. Maarten 19 Turkey 20 Uganda 21 UK: England and Wales 22 UK: Scotland 23 USA 24 References

Australia

• Craig Gee was attacked on December 3, 2007, by four men whilst holding his boyfriend's hand walking down Crown Street in Surry Hills, Sydney, Australia. Part of his skull was reduced to powder and his leg was broken during the attack.^[1] This incident prompted a vigil against the rising level of homophobia in the city and alleged apathy from police,^[2] and despite the attack, Gee and his boyfriend joined the Chief of Parade Margaret Cho to lead the 2008 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade.^[3]

Brazil

• Osvan Inacio dos Santos, 19, was attacked and murdered in September 2007 on a street near a bar where he had just won the local "Miss Gay" competition in the town of Batingas in northeast Brazil. dos Santos' naked body was found on Sunday morning and forensic examination found his skull had been fractured and indicated sexual assault.^[4]

• Alexandre Peixe dos Santos, Brazilian gay rights activist, was attacked and beaten in February 2008 at the Sao Paulo's Gay Pride Association offices in Brazil. Activists estimate that more than 2,680 gay people were murdered in Brazil between 1980 and 2006.^[5]

Canada

• Aaron Webster, a gay man in Vancouver, British Columbia, was beaten to death with baseball bats and pool cues on November 17, 2001 in a part of Stanley Park known for cruising. Ryan Cran, along with two unidentified youths, was convicted of manslaughter in Webster's death. Cran was paroled in February 2009 after serving four years of a six-year sentence.^[6]
• Jordan Smith, 27, of White Rock, British Columbia, was brutally assaulted on September 27, 2008 by 20-year-old Michael Kandola of Vancouver. Smith was holding hands with another male while walking in Vancouver's Davie Village, an area frequented by GLBTQ individuals, when Kandola started following the pair with four to five of his friends and began shouting anti-gay obscenities towards the gay pair. Kandola confronted the two and punched Smith on the side of his head, knocking him unconscious. Smith required surgery for his injuries. Kandola was charged with assault causing bodily harm, and police sought to invoke Canadian hate-crime legislation against Kandola. A Facebook group with over 4000 members was been established petitioning for a minimum life imprisonment sentence for Kandola.^[7] On April 30, 2010, the assault was deemed by the B.C. Supreme Court to be a hate crime and Kandola was sentenced to 17 months in jail.^[8]
• Anji Dimitriou and Jane Currie were physically assaulted on November 3, 2008 at an Oshawa, Ontario public school while waiting to pick up their children. Mark Scott, the attacker, punched both women in the face, referring to them as "men", "fucking dyke bitches" and spit in Dimitriou's face. He was in court in Jan. 2009, for two counts of assault causing bodily harm.^[9][10]

Croatia

• 30 participants at a gay pride event in Croatia were attacked by multiple assailants on July 7, 2007. The attackers had also prepared Molotov cocktails but were stopped by the police before using them. Many people taking part in Gay Pride marches in Eastern Europe (e.g.: Romania, Russia, Serbia) have been beaten after leaving the marches.^[11][12]

France

• Francois Chenu, murdered -- beaten and drowned -- by neo-Nazi skinheads on September 13, 2002, in Rheims, France. The murder became the subject of the documentary Beyond Hatred, which includes extended interviews with members of Francois' family during and after the trial. As depicted in the documentary, one of the assailants was a minor, who received a 15-year sentence, while two adult attackers received 20-year sentences. The parents of the 15-year-old also received 6-month sentences for their neglect, contributing to the son's violence.
• Bertrand Delanoë, the openly gay mayor of Paris, was non-fatally stabbed in October 2002.

Iraq

• In 2005, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa on his website calling for the execution of gays in the "worst, most severe way". Following protests from UK-based Iraqi gay rights groups, Sistani agreed to remove the fatwa from his website except for the section calling for the punishment of lesbianism. In January 2007, a United Nations report described the increased persecution, torture and extrajudicial killing of Iraqi lesbians and gay men by the Shia death squads of the Badr and Sadr militias (the armed wings of the two main Shia parties that control the government of Iraq).^[13][14][15]

Ireland

• Declan Flynn was beaten to death in Fairview Park, Dublin, in 1983. The murder and subsequent suspended sentences of the perpetrators who pleaded guilty to murder saw the emergence of a more vocal gay community in the aftermath.^[16]
• TV personality Mark O'Neill and his partner came under a bloody attack from a gay bashing gang while walking on Patrick Street in Dublin in 2010.^[17]
• TV presenter Brendan Courtney was battered by a gay bashing stranger while walking home down South Great George's Street in Dublin in 2011. A man in his early twenties punched him in the face and shouted "queer" before running away. Courtney said it was "disgraceful" that such an incident could occur in Dublin.^[18] He told Liveline that more than 50 other gay people had told him of their own experiences of being assaulted or verbally abused in towns nationwide.^[19]

Israel

• Three marchers in a gay pride parade in Jerusalem on June 30, 2005 were allegedly stabbed by Yishai Shlisel, a Haredi Jew. Shlisel claimed he had acted "in the name of God". He was charged with attempted murder.^[20]

• Nir Katz, 24, and Liz Tarbushi, 16, were killed and fifteen others were injured when a gunman entered a gay youth club in Tel Aviv and shot at patrons with automatic rifle fire on August 1, 2009.^[21] Tarbushi was not gay, but was present at the youth club to be with friends.^[22][23]

Jamaica

• Brian Williamson, Jamaican gay rights activist, was murdered on June 5, 2004 in Kingston. His killer, Dwight Hayden, who used a machete to stab and chop him some 70 times, pleaded guilty^[24] and received a life sentence.^[25]
• An alleged gay man was chased down a pier by a Jamaican mob in December 2005. The man, fearful of the crowd, jumped into the water and drowned.^[26]
• An alleged gay student was attacked during a student riot in April 2006 at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica.^[26]
• A group of gay men, including gay-rights activist Gareth Williams, were stoned by a mob in Mandeville, Jamaica on February 14, 2007. Their attackers reportedly had earlier demanded that the men leave the community.^[27][28]
• During the funeral of a gay man in Mandeville, Jamaica on April 8, 2007, approximately 100 men gathered outside the church where 150 people were attending. According to mourners, the crowd broke the windows with bottles and shouted, "We want no battyman [gay] funeral here. Leave or else we’re going to kill you. We don’t want no battyman buried here in Mandeville." ^[26]
• Three gay men were attacked in the privacy of their dwelling in January, 2008 by an angry mob who had days before threatened them if they did not leave the community in Mandeville. According to reports, two men were hospitalised, one with serious injuries, while another man is still missing and feared dead.^[26][28]

Martinique

• In 1964, American composer Marc Blitzstein was murdered in a homophobic attack by three sailors.^[29]

New Zealand

• Jeff Whittington, a supposedly gay teenager, was beaten, kicked, and stomped to death by two men who reportedly later boasted of beating up a "faggot". The murder took place in Wellington, New Zealand, on May 8, 1999. Whittington's attackers, Jason Morris Meads and Stephen James Smith, were sentenced to life in prison.^[30]

Norway

• Magne Andreassen was murdered on August 21, 1992 in Lillehammer. The police investigation took about a year before Bård Faust, the drummer of the band Emperor, was tried and convicted of the killing. He was released from prison in 2002.^[31][32]

Portugal

• Gisberta Salce Júnior, a Brazilian transsexual living in Oporto, Portugal, was tortured and raped with sticks over a period of three days, then tossed into a water-filled pit and left to die in February 2006. A group of adolescent boys admitted to the attack^[33] and received suspended sentences.

Serbia

• Participants of the first Serbian Pride Parade in Belgrade on June 30, 2001 were attacked by hundreds of Serbian nationalists, skinheads, and soccer hooligans.^[34]

Sierra Leone

• FannyAnn Eddy was the most prominent Sierra Leonean gay and lesbian rights activist, working for Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association (SLLGA) which she had founded in 2002, and had addressed the United Nations on lesbian and gay issues in her country during the discussion on the Brazilian Resolution. On September 28, 2004 Eddy was murdered while working alone in the Freetown SLLGA office. It is believed up to three men took part in the attack.^[35][36] Sierra Leone Police Force said that the murder could not be blamed on homophobia, and dismissed the claim that she had been raped, or that there was more than one attacker. The one suspect that had been captured escaped from police custody before trial and has not been recaptured or prosecuted. Human rights activists are unclear whether this was a hate crime or not, but regard her attack by one or more individuals in the offices of SLLGA as significant. They have asked why only one suspected attacker was captured, expressed concern over repeated delays in prosecution, and how the suspect was able to escape custody.^[37][38][39] In 2007 the Hirschfeld Eddy Foundation for the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people was established in Berlin; the name is a combination of Eddy and Magnus Hirschfeld's names.

South Africa

• Two people were injured when Blah Bar, a gay bar in Cape Town, South Africa, was bombed in November 1999.^[40]

Spain

• Julio Anderson Luciano and his fiancé Isaac Ali Dani Peréz Triviño were killed on January 13, 2006 in the home they shared with Peréz Triviño's mother in the Spanish city of Vigo. Jacobo Piñeiro Rial, who stabbed them 22 and 35 times, respectively, then set fire to the home, was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for arson after being acquitted by a jury of murder charges on a "gay panic" defence.^[41]

St. Maarten

• Richard Jefferson, senior producer of CBS Evening News, and Ryan Smith, producer-researcher of 48 Hours, both American, were severely beaten with a tire iron on April 6, 2006 outside the Sunset Beach Bar on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten.^[42] Three men and one woman were convicted and sentenced to prison for the attack, which was ruled a hate crime.^[43]

Turkey

• Ahmet Yıldız, a gay man, was shot to death on July 15, 2008 in İstanbul.^[44]

Uganda

• David Kato, a prominent Ugandan gay rights activist, was beaten to death in his home on January 27, 2011. Mr. Kato had recently appeared on the front page of an anti-gay newspaper under the headline "Hang Them". Gay rights activists believe he was murdered for this reason, though the police say he was the victim of theft, not a hate crime.^[45]

UK: England and Wales

• Kenneth Crowe, an English schoolteacher, aged 37, was found dead on 31 July 1950 in Rotherham, wearing his wife's clothes and a wig. He had approached a miner on his way home from the pub, who upon discovering Crowe was male, beat and strangled him.^[46] John Cooney was found not guilty of murder and sentenced to five years for manslaughter.^[47]
• Christopher Schliach, a barrister who was gay, was murdered in his home in September 1989; he was stabbed more than 40 times.^[48]
• Henry Bright, a hotelier who was gay, was stabbed to death at his home in December 1989.^[48]
• William Dalziel, a hotel porter who was gay, was found unconscious on a roadside in Acton, west London in January 1990. He died from severe head injuries.^[48]
• Michael Boothe, an actor who was gay, died in April 1990 in west London, beaten to death by a gang of up to six men close to a public lavatory.^[49] The police said he had been the victim of "an extraordinarily severe beating, of a merciless and savage nature". He managed to give a description of his attackers before he died, and a reward of £15,000 was offered, but no one was caught,^[48] and the crime remains unsolved. The police review identified institutional homophobia within the Metropolitan Police as a factor.^[50]
• Colin Ireland, age 43, was jailed for life in 1993 for murdering five gay men. Ireland picked up the men at pubs in London, and then killed them in their own homes.^[49] A Scotland Yard review showed that Ireland's capture was hampered by institutional homophobia within the Metropolitan Police.^[50]
• Andrew Collier, a housing warden, aged 33, was one of Ireland's victims; the murder was classified as homophobic and linked with the death of Peter Walker, Ireland's first victim. The report said the police could have done more to warn the community of the links between the murders.^[50]
• Emanuel Spiteri, age 41, was strangled to death in his flat in Catford by Ireland, after meeting in a pub in Earls Court, west London.^[50]
• Robyn Brown, a 23-year-old transsexual prostitute, was found stabbed to death in her flat in London on 28 February 1997. The original report described her as being 23-year-old Gemma Browne, formerly James Darwin Browne.^[51] The case went cold for over ten years, but her killer, James Hopkins, was eventually caught; in January 2009 he was jailed for life.^[52][53] The report found that identifying her to the public using different names may have hampered attempts to connect with relevant communities.^[50]

• In May 1999, the Admiral Duncan, a gay pub in Soho was bombed by former British National Party member David Copeland, killing three people and wounding at least 70.^[54][55]
• Jaap Bornkamp, a 52 year old florist, was knifed in a homophobic attack in south-east London in June 2000; the murder remains unsolved despite the police displaying 20 ft by 10 ft images of CCTV footage taken near the murder scene. He was attacked after leaving a night club, and the police are reported as saying there was no confrontation or argument, but that the attack was homophobic and unprovoked.^[49] The report found this case to have been a model of police good practice.^[50]
• Damilola Taylor was attacked by a local gang of youths on 27 November 2000 in Peckham, south London; he bled to death after being stabbed with a broken bottle in the thigh, which severed the femoral artery. The BBC, Telegraph, Guardian and Independent newspapers reported at the time that during the weeks between arriving in the UK from Nigeria and the attack he had been subjected to bullying and beating, which included homophobic remarks by a group of boys at his school. "The bullies told him that he was gay."^[56] He "may not have understood why he was being bullied at school, or why some other children taunted him about being 'gay' – the word meant nothing to him."^[57] He had to ask his mother what 'gay' meant, she said "Boys were swearing at him, saying lots of horrible words. They were calling him names."^[57] His mother had spoken about this bullying, but the teachers failed to take it seriously. "She said pupils had accused her son of being gay and had beaten him last Friday."^[58] Six months after the murder, his father said, "I spoke to him and he was crying that he was being bullied and being called names. He was being called 'gay'."^[59] In the New Statesman two years later, when there had still been no convictions for the crime, Peter Tatchell, gay human rights campaigner, said, "In the days leading up to his murder in south London in November 2000, he was subjected to vicious homophobic abuse and assaults,"^[60] and asked why the authorities had ignored this before and after his death.
• Geoffrey Windsor, 57, in south London died in June 2002 from head injuries at Beaulieu Heights, a well-known gay cruising area, after he was beaten and robbed. The police said the murder was motivated by homophobia.^[49] A review of this and similar cases in the area highlighted poor policing due to institutional homophobia within the police, particularly in not taking previous attacks in the area more seriously.^[50]
• Lauren Harries, a transwoman, was attacked in July 2005 along with her father and brother in their home in Cardiff by eight youths who shouted the word "tranny" while beating their victims. One youth pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm and was sentenced to two years probation; his accomplices were not formally identified or charged.^[61][62]
• Jody Dobrowski was beaten to death on 14 October 2005 on Clapham Common in London by two men who perceived him as being gay; Dobrowski was beaten so badly he had to be identified by his fingerprints. Thomas Pickford and Scott Walker were given life sentences in what was described as a 'homophobic murder' in June 2006.^[63] This was the first prosecution in England and Wales where Section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 was used in sentencing the killers; this enabled the courts to impose a tougher sentence for offenses motivated or aggravated by the victim's sexual orientation, in this case a minimum of 30 years in prison.^[64]
• Rev Dr Barry Rathbone, an openly gay Anglican priest, was attacked in April 2006. He was sitting in a park in Bournemouth, Dorset when Martin Powell and his girlfriend approached and spoke to him. Rathbone informed them that it was a cruising area, then Powell produced a 3-foot-long (0.91 m) metal baseball bat, called him a 'queer', and started to hit him.^[65]
• Michael Causer, 18, was attacked by a group of men on 25 July 2008 at a party in Liverpool, and died from his injuries. It is alleged that he was killed because he was gay.^[66]
• Daniel Jenkinson, 23, a gay hairdresser, was the victim of a homophobic attack on 23 October 2008 in a Preston club. His attacker, Neil Bibby, also from Preston, was sentenced to 200 hours' unpaid work, a three-month weekend curfew, and ordered to pay £2,000 compensation after he pleaded guilty to assault. Daniel needed facial reconstruction surgery after the attack, and said he was too scared to go out in the city.^[67]
• Gerry Edwards, 59, and his partner of over twenty years, Chris Bevan, 56, were stabbed by an assailant shouting homophobic abuse on 3 March 2009 in Bromley, south London. Gerry died from his injuries, and Chris was admitted to hospital in a critical condition.^[68][69] The police dealing with the case said they had an open mind, but were treating it as a homophobic murder. Two men were subsequently arrested.^[70]
• Sol Campbell, a footballer, was the target of disgruntled fans shouting homophobic abuse during a match. On the 15 May 2009, an English court found two football fans guilty of shouting the homophobic chants.^[71] This was the first prosecution for indecent chanting in the UK.^[72] The police reported that up to 2,500 fans shouted chants at the match that included "Sol, Sol, wherever you may be, Not long now until lunacy, We won't give a fuck if you are hanging from a tree," the footballer commented "I felt totally victimised and helpless by the abuse I received on this day. It has had an effect on me personally".^[72] Three men and two boys were given cautions after the match.^[72]

UK: Scotland

In 2009, the Scottish parliament unanimously passed legislation that means that crimes motivated by hatred of gay or disabled people will now be considered as 'aggravated offences'.^[73]

• 6 April 1960. Queen's Park (near Hampdem Park), Glasgow. John Cremin murder. John Cremin was hit over the head with a flat piece of wood by 19 year old Antony Miller after being lured from a public toilet by a 16 year old accomplice James Denovan. Cremlin fell to the ground with a fractured skull and died due to massive haemorrhaging. He was robbed of his bankbook, wallet, a knife and £67. This led to the last hanging in Scotland at Barlinnie Prison, convicted murderer Antony Millar 19 years old, on 22 December 1960 - the last teenager to be hanged in the 20th century before the death penalty ended. Anthony Millar was buried within Barlinnie as was common with hanged prisoners. Accomplice James Denovan at 16 was too young in law to face the death penalty.^[74]

• May 1993. Gordon Dunbar murder. Alistair Thomson, 61, was sentenced to life imprisonment at Edinburgh High Court in May 1993. Thomson was ordered to serve a minimum of 15 years after he hacked to death Gordon Dunbar, a homosexual man he picked up in Dundee. The killer then dumped parts of Mr Dunbar's dismembered body across the city, while the victim’s head has never been found.^[75]

• Summer 1995. Michael Doran, 35 years old, was violently attacked and murdered in Queen's Park Glasgow by a gang of three lads and a girl went on a queer bashing rampage. He received 83 blows to his body and was stabbed several times in the groin and stamped on, and broke every bone in his face. The gang then joined a nearby party and bragged about what they had done.^[74]

• April 2007. James Kerr Murder. A teenager who murdered a gay council worker in a public park in Perth was jailed for life. David Meehan, 19, from Perth, admitted murdering James Kerr in a homophobic attack at South Inch Park in April. Mr Kerr, 51, was left lying in a pool of blood with major head injuries while Meehan and his accomplices went to a party. David Meehan will serve at least 16 years in jail.^[76]

USA

• Several men were assaulted on July 5, 1978 by a gang of youths armed with baseball bats and tree branches in an area of Central Park in New York City known to be frequented by homosexuals. The victims were assaulted at random, but the assailants later confessed that they had deliberately set out to the park to attack homosexuals. One of those injured was former figure skater Dick Button, who was assaulted while watching a fireworks display in the park.^[77][78]
• Harvey Milk, the openly gay San Francisco city supervisor, along with Mayor George Moscone, were assassinated on November 27, 1978 by political rival Dan White at San Francisco City Hall.^[79] Outrage over the assassinations and the short sentence given to White (seven years) prompted the White Night Riots.^[80]
• Tennessee Williams was the victim of an assault in January 1979 in Key West, being beaten by five teenage boys. He escaped serious injury. The episode was part of a spate of anti-gay violence inspired by an anti-gay newspaper ad run by a local Baptist minister.^[81]
• Steven Charles, 17, of Newark was beaten to death in New York City on October 7, 1979, by Costabile "Gus" Farace, Robert DeLicio, David Spoto and Farace's cousin Mark Granato. They also beat Charles' friend, 16 year old Thomas Moore of Brooklyn. Moore was critically injured but managed to get help at a nearby residence. It was Moore that identified the four men via a lineup four days after the incident. Farace, the leader of the attack, plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter. He was paroled after 8 years, in 1988. He himself was murdered on November 17, 1989.^[82]
• Charlie Howard was drowned in Bangor, Maine, in 1984.^[83]
• Rebecca Wight was killed on May 13, 1988 when she and her partner, Claudia Brenner, were shot by Stephen Roy Carr while hiking and camping along the Appalachian Trail. Carr later claimed that he became enraged by the couple's lesbianism when he saw them having sex ^[84]
• James Zappalorti (1945–1990), a gay Vietnam veteran, was stabbed to death.^[85]
• Paul Broussard (1968–1991), a Houston-area banker, was murdered.
• U.S. Navy Petty Officer Allen Schindler was murdered by a shipmate who stomped him to death in a public restroom in Japan on October 27, 1992.^[86] Schindler had complained repeatedly about anti-gay harassment aboard ship.^[86] The case became synonymous with the gays in the military debate that had been brewing in the United States culminating in the "Don't ask, don't tell" bill.^[87]
• Brandon Teena, a transman, was raped and later murdered in 1993 when his birth gender was revealed by police to male friends of his.^[88] The events leading to Teena's death were depicted in the movie Boys Don't Cry.^[89]
• Scott Amedure was murdered on March 9, 1995, after revealing his attraction to his friend Jonathan Schmitz on a The Jenny Jones Show episode about secret crushes. Schmitz purchased a shotgun to kill Amedure and did so after Amedure implied he still was attracted to him; Schmitz then turned himself in to police.^[90][91]
• Roxanne Ellis and Michelle Abdill, a lesbian couple in Medford, Oregon, were murdered on December 4, 1995, by a man who said he had "no compassion" for bisexual or homosexual people.^[92] Robert Acremant was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection.^[93]
• The Otherside Lounge, a lesbian nightclub in Atlanta, was bombed by Eric Robert Rudolph, the "Olympic Park Bomber," on February 21, 1997; five bar patrons were injured. In a statement released after he was sentenced to five consecutive life terms for his several bombings, Rudolph called homosexuality an "aberrant lifestyle".
• Matthew Shepard (1976–1998), a gay student, was fatally attacked in Laramie, Wyoming on October 7, 1998. Shepard was tortured, beaten severely, tied to a fence, and abandoned; he was found 18 hours after the attack and succumbed to his injuries less than a week later, on October 12. His attackers, Russell Arthur Henderson and Aaron James McKinney, are both serving two consecutive life sentences in prison.^[94]
• Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, a gay couple, were murdered on July 1, 1999, by white supremacist brothers Matthew and Tyler Williams in Redding, California. Tyler Williams was sentenced to a minimum of 33 years in prison, to be served after his completion of a 21-year sentence for firebombing synagogues and an abortion clinic.^[95] Benjamin Williams claimed that by killing the couple he was "obeying the laws of the Creator".^[96] He committed suicide in 2003 while awaiting trial. Their former pastor described the brothers as "zealous in their faith" but "far from kooks".^[97]
• U.S. Army Pfc. Barry Winchell was murdered on July 6, 1999, in Fort Campbell, Kentucky by fellow soldier Calvin Glover. Winchell was beaten to death with a baseball bat after rumors spread on base of his relationship with transgendered author Calpernia Addams. Glover was sentenced to life in prison.^[98]
• Steen Fenrich was murdered in September 1999, apparently by his stepfather, John D. Fenrich, in Queens, New York. His dismembered remains were found in March 2001, with the phrase "gay nigger number one" scrawled on his skull along with his social security number. His stepfather fled from police while being interviewed, then committed suicide.^[99]
• Arthur "J.R." Warren was punched and kicked to death by two teenage boys on July 3, 2000, in Grant Town, West Virginia, who reportedly believed Warren had spread a rumor that he and one of the boys, David Allen Parker, had a sexual relationship. Warren's killers ran over his body to disguise the murder as a hit-and-run. Parker pleaded guilty and was sentenced to "life in prison with mercy", making him eligible for parole after 15 years.^[100] His accomplice, Jared Wilson, was sentenced to 20 years.^[101]
• Ronald Gay entered a gay bar in Roanoke, Virginia on September 22, 2000 and opened fire on the patrons, killing Danny Overstreet, 43 years old, and severely injuring six others. Ronald said he was angry over what his name now meant, and deeply upset that three of his sons had changed their surname. He claimed that he had been told by God to find and kill lesbians and gay men, describing himself as a "Christian Soldier working for my Lord;" Gay testified in court that "he wished he could have killed more fags," before several of the shooting victims as well as Danny Overstreet's family and friends.^[102]
• Nizah Morris, a trans woman, was the victim of a possible homicide in December 2002 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• Gwen Araujo, a trans woman, was murdered by at least three men who were charged with committing a hate crime. Two were convicted of murder, the third manslaughter; however, the jury rejected the hate crime enhancement.
• Sakia Gunn, a 15-year-old lesbian, was murdered on May 11, 2003, in Newark, New Jersey. While waiting for a bus, Gunn and her friends were propositioned by two men. When the girls rejected their advances, declaring themselves to be lesbians, the men attacked them. One of the men, Richard McCullough, fatally stabbed Gunn. In exchange for his pleading guilty to several lesser crimes including aggravated manslaughter, prosecutors dropped murder charges against McCullough, who was sentenced to 20 years.^[103][104]
• Richie Phillips of Elizabethtown, Kentucky was killed on June 17, 2003, by Joseph Cottrell. His body was later found in a suitcase in Rough River Lake. During his trial, two of Cottrell's relatives testified that he lured Phillips to his death, and killed him because he was gay.^[105] Cottrell was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison.^[106]
• Nireah Johnson and Brandie Coleman were shot to death on July 23, 2003 by Paul Moore when Moore learned after a sexual encounter that Johnson was transgender.^[107] Moore then burned his victims' bodies. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to 120 years in prison.^[108]
• Glenn Kopitske, 37, was shot and stabbed in the back on July 31, 2003, by 17-year-old Gary Hirte, a straight-A student, star athlete and Eagle Scout,^[109] in Winnebago County, Wisconsin. Prosecutors contended that Hirte murdered Kopitske to see if he could get away with it.^[110] Hirte pleaded insanity, claiming he killed Kopitske in a murderous rage after a consensual sexual encounter with the victim, because he felt a homosexual act was "worse than murder". The 'temporary insanity' mitigation plea was not upheld, he was found guilty, and received a life sentence.
• Scotty Joe Weaver was an 18 year-old murder victim from Bay Minette, Alabama, whose burned and partially decomposed body was discovered on July 22, 2004, a few miles from the mobile home in which he lived. He was beaten, strangled and stabbed numerous times, partially decapitated, and his body was doused in gasoline and set on fire.
• Ronnie Antonio Paris, a three-year-old boy living in Tampa, Florida, died on January 28, 2005, due to brain injuries inflicted by his father, Ronnie Paris, Jr. According to his mother and other relatives, Ronnie Paris, Jr., repeatedly slammed his son into walls, slapped the child's head, and "boxed" him because he was concerned the child was gay and would grow up a sissy. Paris was sentenced to thirty years in prison.^[111][112]
• Jason Gage, an openly gay man, was murdered on March 11, 2005, in his Waterloo, Iowa apartment by an assailant, Joseph Lawrence, who claimed Gage had made sexual advance to him. Gage was bludgeoned to death with a bottle, and stabbed in the neck, probably post-mortem, with a shard of glass.^[113] Lawrence was sentenced to fifty years in prison.
• 18-year-old Jacob D. Robida entered a bar on February 2, 2006, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, confirmed that it was a gay bar, and then attacked patrons with a hatchet and a handgun, wounding three.^[114] He fatally shot himself three days later.^[115]
• Kevin Aviance, a female impressionist, musician, and fashion designer, was robbed and beaten in Manhattan on June 10, 2006, by a group of men who yelled anti-gay slurs at him. Four assailants pleaded guilty and received prison sentences.^[116]
• Six men were attacked with baseball bats and knives on July 30, 2006, after leaving the San Diego, California Gay Pride festival. One victim was injured so severely that he had to undergo extensive facial reconstructive surgery. Three men pleaded guilty in connection with the attacks and received prison sentences. A 15-year-old juvenile also pleaded guilty.^[117][118]
• An altercation occurred in Manhattan on August 18, 2006, between a man and seven black lesbians from Newark, New Jersey. During the altercation, the man was stabbed. The women claim that they acted in self-defense after he screamed homophobic epithets, spit on them, and pulled one of their weaves off,^[119] while he has described the attack as "a hate crime against a straight man."^[120]
• Michael Sandy was attacked on October 8, 2006, by four young heterosexual men who lured him into meeting after chatting online, while they were looking for gay men to rob. He was struck by a car while trying to escape his attackers, and died five days later without regaining consciousness.^[121][122]
• Andrew Anthos, a 72-year-old disabled gay man, was beaten with a lead pipe by a man who was shouting anti-gay names at him on February 27, 2007 in Detroit, Michigan. Anthos died 10 days later in the hospital.^[123]
• Sean William Kennedy, 20, was walking to his car from Brew's Bar in Greenville, SC on May 16, 2007, when Stephen Andrew Moller, 18, got out of another car and approached Kennedy. Investigators said that Moller made a comment about Kennedy's sexual orientation, and threw a fatal punch because he did not like the other man's sexual preference.^[124]
• Duanna Johnson, a transsexual woman, was beaten by a police officer in February 2008, while she was held in the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center in Tennessee. Johnson said the officers reportedly called her a “faggot” and “he-she,” before and during the incident.^[125] In November 2008, she was found dead in the street, reportedly gunned down by three unknown individuals.^[126]
• Lawrence "Larry" King, a 15 year old junior highschool student was shot twice by a classmate at E.O. Green School in Oxnard, California on February 12, 2008. He was taken off life support after doctors declared him brain dead on February 15.^[127] According to Associated Press reports, "prosecutors have charged a 14-year-old classmate with premeditated murder with hate-crime and firearm-use enhancements".^{[128][129][130]}
• Angie Zapata, an 18 year old trans woman, was beaten to death on July 17, 2008, in Colorado, two days after meeting Allen Ray Andrade. The case was prosecuted as a hate crime, and Andrade was found guilty of first degree murder on April 22, 2009.^[131]
• Nima Daivari, 26, was attacked by a man who called him "faggot" on September 13, 2008, in Denver, Colorado. The police that arrived on the scene refused to make a report of the attack.^[132]
• A Bourbonnais, Illinois elementary school bus driver was charged with leading a homophobic attack on a 10-year old student passenger on September 15, 2008. The boy was taunted by the driver who then encouraged other students to chase and beat the child.^[133]
• Lateisha Green, a 22 year old transgender woman, was shot and killed by Dwight DeLee on November 14, 2008, in Syracuse, NY because he thought she was gay.^[134] Local news media reported the incident with her legal name, Moses "Teish" Cannon.^[135] DeLee was convicted of first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime on July 17, 2009, and received the maximum sentence of 25 years in state prison. This was only the second time in the nation’s history that a person was prosecuted for a hate crime against a transgender person and the first hate crime conviction in New York state.^{[136][137][138]}
• Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, an 11 year old child in Springfield, Massachusetts, hanged himself with an extension cord on April 6, 2009, after being bullied all school year by peers who said "he acted feminine" and was gay.^[139]
• Justin Goodwin, 36, of Salem, Massachusetts was attacked and beaten on April 11, 2009, by as many as six people outside a bar in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Goodwin suffered a shattered jaw, broken eye socket, broken nose and broken cheekbone.^[140]
• Seaman August Provost was found shot to death and his body burned at his guard post on Camp Pendleton on June 30, 2009. LGBT community leaders "citing military sources initially said that Provost’s death was a hate crime."^[141] Provost had been harassed because of his sexual orientation.^[141] Military leaders have since explained that "whatever the investigation concludes, the military’s “Don't ask, don't tell” policy prevented Provost from seeking help."^[141] Family and friends believe he was murdered because he was openly gay (or bisexual according to some family and sources);^{[142][143][144][145][146]} the killer committed suicide a week later after admitting the murder, the Navy have not concluded if this was a hate crime.^[147]

References

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