Keep in mind, neither this post nor my first advocates in any way for simply “taking the side of the cops”. All I’m saying is that the entirety of the facts must be considered — and the legal process, while it may not be perfect, is the best mechanism we’ve been able to develop thus far for determining the truth of disputed issues. During the course of the trial, we MAY (or may not) determine that these individual cops were innocent of any wrongdoing. And if there’s anyone in the world who should understand how wrong it is to judge people as a group, or on insufficient evidence, I would think it would be us in the GLBTQ community. For instance, remember the old assumption – still heard in many places! – that all gay men are pedophiles? Doesn’t it make you incredibly angry to be placed in an odious category where you don’t deserve to be? Well, I’d have to assume that “good eggs” in law enforcement feel the same way about being generalized as thugs owing to the actions of SOME other cops who are… yet this is exactly what some of the comments here are doing — assuming aggression and homophobia were present, from little more information than the fact that the shooter is a cop and the victim was gay. Sorry, but when the GLBTQ community says “whaddaya expect, they’re cops”, it’s just as unfair as when the Religious Right says “whaddaya expect, they’re queers”.

And PJ, I’d have to be blind to deny your basic premise that there’s been a lot of homophobic violence perpetuated by cops throughout American history, or that interactions with law enforcement are a setting in which we as a community more commonly face discrimination. But, like any wrongful act, these are only fairly attributable to the individuals who actually commit them. Until a fair trial demonstrates anything else (and it *might* – that’s why we conduct one!), the only thing the San Diego officers have in common with those cops who HAVE perpetuated homophobia is the fact that they wear a badge.

(Incidentally, at first I was amazed to hear that case-by-case assessment, and reservation of judgment until full facts are presented, now constitute “straight-wannabe conformity”. Then I realized that, as a long-term avowed agnostic, I’m already more than familiar with the basic excluded-middle paradigm. The agnostic position is essentially rooted in an objection of insufficient *evidence* for God’s existence — yet the Catholics think we actively judge religious people, and the atheists think we’ve actively decided to be chicken-s–t. So I suppose it’s *understandable* that people who come into a situation having already decided they hate the cops would misread a neutral “wait and see” response as actively pro-cop — but that doesn’t render any less distressing our society’s increasing tendency toward rashness and rancor).

And as for “bowing to authority”: sorry, but I don’t think that failure to jump to conclusions is evidence of affliction with Stockholm syndrome; I don’t think that the possible approaches to a political question can be divided neatly into Justifiable Rage Of The Entitled and Capitulation Of The Shrinking Violet; and I don’t think that judging individual cases as individual cases will lead inexorably to another Holocaust. (If anything, too much *generalization* runs the risk of providing a fertile host for the sort of hatred and animus that, left unchecked, leads humanity in such tragic directions…)

This guy, by all acounts, was a man-child ‘dancer/bodybuilder/actor’ – obviously contributing a lot to our society. These allegations are not being made by the HRC or community activists, but by his parent’s CIVIL attorney, who wants to sue.

It just seems much more likely that this guy was just another drugged out party-boy who had too much (we’ve all seen them!) , other than a brutal murder by professional law enforcement.

Step up, guys! There’s more to life than the gym and the dance floor! Stop objectifying yourself and others!! Be men!