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Loading ...Navy: Murder charge filed in gay seaman’s death
07.24.2009 7:01am EDT
(San Diego) The U.S. Navy says a sailor has been charged in military court with murder and other offenses in the shooting death of a gay San Diego seaman.
Petty Officer Jonathan Campos of Lancaster, Calif., was charged Thursday in connection to last month’s fatal shooting of Seaman August Provost of Houston.Provost was shot multiple times as he stood guard at Camp Pendleton on June 30. The 29-year-old’s family believes the shooting may have been a hate crime. The family says Provost complained of being harassed about his sexuality in the days before his death.
Navy officials have rejected those claims and say there is no record of Provost filing a harassment report.
They say Campos, a 32-year-old gas system technician, is being held at the brig and is cooperating with investigators.
Of course he didn’t file a complaint. If he did, they would know he was gay and either let it happen anyway for just boot him out. Remember, until our society emerges from the dark ages, being gay is still a crime and a sin.
Hate crime, hate crime, hate crime. I am so tired of hearing about crimes and about if it was a hate crime. Someone is killed while being mugged and the call for calling it a hate crime. When was some one killed in a love crime? How could someone be shot a number of times and then the guard shak set on fire and not be a hate crime. Oh wait, I forgot. If it had been a straight man would it be called a hate crime? I would hope so. We just continue let the powers to be divid us, the public. Every day there are stories of the crimes that should be called hate crimes. I have never heard of someone robbing a convennt store doing so with love.
Give me a break.
The navy promotes intolerance from day one in boot camp when we were told by the chaplan the navy has no room for gays. The navy is as responsable as if they had pulled the trigger.
Hello Congress? Hello President? Hello Joint Chiefs of Staff?
Does this case alone not make it crystal clear why Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Needs to End?
Mr. President, I know that you’re good (of recent) in making comments about local crime and arrest matters. Where is your outcry about this? I guess that someone being shot and burned does not rise to the ranks of someone that is handcuffed.
The Navy will never admit this was a hate crime. There needs to be an outside investigation.
Of course there wouldn’t be any record of him filing complaints. Have you idiots(military) not heard of DADT??? Ooohhhh, I could scream! Yeah sure, they would have looked at his complaints…just to verify that he did in fact violate the DADT policy. Then he’d be facing a general discharge AND harrassment.
One would hope and pray that for the family and loved ones of August Provost that they will find peace and justice will be served for the obvious hate crime murder of their beloved son. I tend to agree with Katchafalinstar’s comments that “just because he didn’t file a complaint doesn’t mean that he didn’t complain to his family and friends” to be a very strong argument in the victim’s favour. Nobody knows how long Mr. Provost suffered from the abuse, maybe he was deathly afraid to say anything at all in fear of not only losing his position in the Navy for being Gay but the real possibility of suffering further abuse at the hands of Mr. Campos. Tragically, his fears came to reality when Mr. Campos chose to clear his gun completely of it’s ammunition just to rid his little homophobic world from the evils of another gay man. I hope you have the guts to look at yourself in the mirror, Mr. Campos, and to face your justice like the man you think you are!
Of course the Navy says that he wasn’t killed for being gay because he never filed a harassment report, the bastards. They know damned good and well that the guy wouldn’t've done that, because he’d've had to make an official declaration of his sexual orientation to do so, which would’ve resulted in his discharge.
Are they really so stupid as to believe we believe their crap where that’s concerned? It infuriates me that they’re so “oh well, a fag died, no big deal” about it. But it also infuriates me that they’d sit there and say that it couldn’t've possibly been a hate-motivated murder based on homophobia simply because the victim didn’t officially report anti-gay harassment.
I’d like to get a few minutes alone in a room with the dipsh*t who made that statement. I’d whoop the hell out of him just for being stupid, which isn’t a protected status under hate crimes legislation, either.
Interesting. How was he supposed to file a harassment report without breaching the DADT policy? The armed forces have a sexual harassment protection standard, but does it include everyone?
Now that his sexuality has come to light, will he still get a proper military burial, or will he get a dis-honorable discharge even after death?
I guess we are going to wait to see what the Navy does, I just hope they take the families feelings into consideration before they turn this into a huge media fiasco.
Either way this is a shame and I thank Provost for protecting and dying for my freedom.
Sigh…
Shot multiples time after harassment about his sexuality in the days before his death and his family and friends made aware of the harassment problem….how much more circumstantial evidence do you need pointing to a hate crime? What does the Navy call being shot multiple times? As in overkill when it takes only one bullet to the head or to the heart to kill someone. Someone really hated him very deeply for some reason to go crazy and “pump him full of “lead” execution style.
I hope something can be done in this case, but i don’t think he would have filed complaints against the harrassment while on job because of the low tollerance of gays in the military. Just because he didn’t file a complaint doesn’t mean that he didn’t complain to his family and friends. I hope they can find solace in this time of devestation.