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Loading ...Tulsa 23-year-old beaten in hate crime
10.20.2009 2:46pm EDT
Brandon Patrick, 23, was beaten Sunday night because he is gay.
Patrick was walking to a friend’s house around midnight when he was followed by two women and a man who he says were yelling homophobic threats.
Patrick ignored the group until they got closer. When he asked them why they were shouting at him, according to Tulsa World:They started “beating, biting and slashing at Patrick with a blade, leaving him with several cuts on his head and body.
“I’ve never felt scared or feared for my safety before,” he said. “You brush it off and walk on. That’s what you’re taught to do.
“This time, it didn’t work.”
Patrick described them as a woman in her early 40s and another woman and man, both in their late teens or early 20s.
Oklahoma’s hate-crimes law makes it a crime to “intimidate or harass another person because of the person’s race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin or disability.”
Jenkins noted that the state law excludes sexual orientation from the qualifiers for a hate crime. As a result, police are investigating the case only as an assault and battery.
Read the story at Tulsa World.
Nice Oklahoma!! Nice to see you care about your vulnerable citizens,,,,fuggin idgits!
@Casey and Craig–so you’re saying that a gun is a solution to denial of Constitutional rights? NO. I don’t care if everybody has a goddamn CCW, it doesn’t fix anything. You two realize you’re saying that there’s no problem with denial of Constitutional rights if you can just shoot the violators? Great way to respond–if Yemen is your vision of a civil society. That said…
Never let anyone say that I have a problem with response. Chasing down homophobic fools and beating some sense into them…well, there are times when the power of counter-intimidation isn’t the worst thing you can do. When Bubba gets his ass thrashed by some angry homos, and is then dropped off in the parking lot of the Yeehaw Saloon wearing a tutu, then it shows that actions do have consequences. What strutting macho bonehead is gonna want to explain to anybody else that he got his ass beat by a bunch of cocksuckers? Leave the guns and knives and nunchucks and brass knuckes out of it. You want a discreet weapon? Steeltoes. I’m sure some of you wear them to work. I used to. Three or four or five on one (the way gay-bashings usually play out) should make weapons unnecessary. Random attacks are NOT cool. The only time it would ever be acceptable to do this would be if that person had been witnessed to engage in homophobic behavior. And again, no, I’m not endorsing such action, because it’s illegal to advocate for assaulting somebody else. If it happened…well…
I wonder if its possible to sue the state for negligence after the assault trial is finished.
I agree with Casey Cameron, SHOOT the bastards.
Maybe we gays should get together and beat up some hicks. Hicks aren’t protected under hate crimes laws. Fair game.
Oklahoma has a concealed carry law. Every single gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered person needs to take advantage of this law. If the state legislature is too homophobic to protect our community, then use the self-protection that the Oklahoma law does give (conceal carry) and refuse to be a crime victim!!
The violance will only increase as we begin to win our civil rights.just as it did when black americans begain to win there EQUAL rights.It is what the hatefull do as they begin to lose there speical rights!It is sad to say we MUST be prepared for being attacked! I am peacefull ^& law abidding citezen but I am never without a weapon or pepper spray.I know I have a right not to be attacked just like our black brothers who were linched.AGAIN NOT BLAMING VICTUM BUT HAD HE HAD SPRAY WHO WOULD NOT BHAVE BEEN THE ONE IN NEED OF MEDICAL CARE!
If everyone fills out the 2010 census, then when Washington sees exactly how many LGBT there really is, they’ll have no choice but to take notice. Fill out those forms you get in the Spring. Let’s make a difference!!
I’m sure he was attacked because they wanted to rob him, not because he was gay. Just ask that stupid b*tch Virginia Foxx from North Carolina.
Ive had girls try to get guys to “get me”because I look gay.I not only have to watch out for straights but jealous drag queens and other tempermental people in the gay community.
Jeff Barea was commenting on Lisa Neff’s column about the Jack Price assault, in Queens. According to Jeff, we don’t need more laws. We need enforcement. Oklahoma law might be enforced, but this isn’t some trash-talking gone wrong in the parking lot of the Yeehaw Saloon. This man was attacked with a weapon. The attackers followed him. It wasn’t assault. It was three on one, there was a weapon, and their conduct leaves no question that they attacked Brandon Patrick BECAUSE HE IS GAY. That’s it. Not because of anything else. If he was one of several people attacked in the city that day, and the victims were a mix of gender and race, then it’d be a different matter. That’s not what happened. No matter how well the Tulsa Police do on pursuing this, they can’t right this wrong. It’s not their fault. Every American–and everybody who happens to be in this country–has the right to not be assaulted. This is one of many times when you find that your “rights” come with an exclusionary asterisk. It’s not good enough. Without Federal hate-crimes legislation, we don’t have equality under the law. We don’t have protection of our Constitutional rights, even though some insist that we’re asking too much. Is it asking too much to be an American citizen and know that, if you are attacked for who you are and nothing else, your right to exist unmolested will be upheld and enforced by the state? If you’re attacked for your race, your gender, your religion, you have that protection. If you’re attacked because you’re presumed to be not str8, you have exactly nothing. Federal law doesn’t consider that a crime, so you’re lucky it gets any attention from the cops at all. That doesn’t make the blood go back in your body, or the scars un-form.
In OKLAHOMA, I think it’s a wonder they are investigating it at all. GET MSHepard bill SIGNED!… Hey, Obama are you listening?
This is just totally sick! How many more beatings, how many more murders must we take as a community before something is done in Oklahama City, Albany, Cheyenne or even Washington, D.C.? This 23 year old man did not deserve this, sure he was lucky to survive, but now he faces the real possibility of suffering unforetold trauma for the rest of a long life – if he lives a long life. What the hell is wrong with you people? Is this what your religion teaches you to do? Is this what your Jesus Christ teaches you is love?
I hate living in Oklahoma. If Tulsa isn’t safe, then what town is in this stpid ass state?
How many more people have to be assaulted before law makers do something about these crimes.