Hate Crimes Thread - Article about New Bedford Gay Bar Shooting

[Khartoun2004]

I got this article from the New York Times website. It's about a hate crime that happened in New Bedford Massachusetts. I know that Mass. has the strictest hate crime laws in the US. If a person commits a hate crime their sentence is immediately doubled. A hate crime here is any crime commited against a person because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, and gender identity. This whole thing has the state in an uproar. All the gay rights groups are holdiong vigials tonight... It just feels really out of place in the only state where same-sex marriage is legal, the first state to have GSA's in public schools, Massachusetts has always been the leader in gay rightsin the entire US. Second Parent Adoption, Anti-Discrimination legislation protecting LGBT students, equal employment... the list goes on.

February 2, 2006


Three Hospitalized After Teenager Opens Fire Inside Gay Bar
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 2:08 p.m. ET

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (AP) -- A teenager armed with a hatchet and handgun opened fire inside a gay bar early Thursday, wounding at least three people in what police are investigating as a hate crime.

A bartender at Puzzles Lounge told The Associated Press that the young man, dressed all in black, ordered a drink and asked if Puzzles was a gay bar. He finished his drink shortly after midnight, ordered another, then started attacking people, the bartender said. Three were hospitalized Thursday.

Police were searching for 18-year-old Jacob D. Robida, Police Capt. Richard Spirlet said. An arrest warrant sought to charge Robida with assault, attempted murder and civil-rights violations.

According to a court filing attached to the warrant, his mother told police he came home around 1 a.m., bleeding from the head, then left again. Officers who searched his bedroom found what they described as ''Nazi regalia'' and anti-Semitic writings on the wall, the police affidavit said. It said Robida was recognized by a woman in the bar.

''Obviously we have a man who's dangerous, who's not rational, and he has weapons,'' Bristol prosecutor Paul Walsh Jr. said.

Spirlet said the teenager was armed with a handgun and ''some sort of cutting instrument'' when he walked into Puzzles Lounge.

The bartender said the man finished his drink and walked to the back of the bar where two men were playing pool, shoved one to the ground, then pulled a hatchet from his sweat shirt and began swinging at the man's head, cutting him. Spirlet said the attack came without provocation.

Other patrons tackled the man, sending the hatchet sliding across the floor, the bartender said. That's when the man pulled out a handgun, he said. The gunman shot both pool players and fired at a patron who was leaving the bathroom, hitting him in the chest.

''He was shooting at everyone,'' said the bartender, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Phillip, because he was concerned about his safety.

Police found the hatchet and a machete in the bar, he said.

Robida graduated in 2001 from the city's Junior Police Academy, a ''boot camp'' that teaches discipline to 12- to 14-year-olds, Acting Police Chief David Provencher said.

A family friend who answered at his home Thursday said his mother, Stephanie Oliver, had no comment.

Puzzles is popular with the local gay community and is listed on Web sites offering resources to gays and lesbians. Police said they rarely respond to reports of trouble there.

''If all the bars in the city were that quiet, we'd be great,'' Spirlet said.

New Bedford, a city of 94,000 residents, is 50 miles south of Boston.

We already have a thread about queer culture. But no one wants to really talk about what happens to the culture in the aftermath of a hate crime. Have there been any hate crimes toward the LGBT community near you? Has it affected the community positively or negatively?

[tainted_chick]

fuckin hell!!

some people are just so fucked up!

[freddie]

It's easy to make an impression on teenagers, I guess, and they often end up being cannon fodder for all sorts of hypocrits who're pushing their skewed agendas through such means. So this 18 year old boy was probably just a "victim" himself, as well.

About hatecrimes here: Well people pretty much don't really care what's going on in people's bedrooms, since Slovenes are so uptight, but there are definitely racial hatecrimes all over. If you're black and have the misfortune of living in Slovenia you'd probably be beaten or at least bothered quite a few times. Especially if you went out at night. Most black people living here are pretty famous and recognizable figures, since they're so rare. And most got attacked at least once. It's not like we're unaccepting of strangers in general. But I guess every 99,9% white society has these skinhead groups, who think Hitler's their saviour and white race was put on this Earth to spread it's superiority and might. I remember a while back a group of skinheads/frustrated teens attacked a known black actor who's been living and working in Slovenia for more than a decade. They assaulted him just as he was commiting the crime of taking a walk in the park while being black.

[Lux]

Offtop:
how many black people are there? not many if they're well known

man. massachusetts! the northeast is known to be more liberal than many parts of the US but shit like this so happens because people will hate until the queers take over and they are made slaves.

[PowerPuff Grrl]

Originally Posted by Khartoun2004

We already have a thread about queer culture. But no one wants to really talk about what happens to the culture in the aftermath of a hate crime. Have there been any hate crimes toward the LGBT community near you? Has it affected the community positively or negatively?

I did remember a gay person being killed, though I don't really remember it I'm pretty sure it was a hate crime. I don't think there was much of a outcry of it because it was just a one time thing. I wouldn't attribute it to the neglect of homosexuals though, Canadians in general are pretty indifferent to things until something bad happens repeatedly. Fortunately there haven't been any hate crimes against homosexuals, or anybody, lately.