… and the presiding investigator says “people who lead this type of lifestyle need to be aware that this will happen”.
Wait, seriously? Being gay leads to mutilation? Let’s just reiterate exactly what happened to this poor boy:
He was found on the site of an isolated road in the city of Cayey, he was partially burned, decapitated, and dismembered, both arms, both legs, and the torso.
Let me be perfectly clear — that kind of thing DOES NOT just “happen”. There’s no passive voice to be had. That’s the kind of thing someone does to someone else. This is murder, and beyond that, it’s likely torture. How much of that damage was done before he was killed? We don’t know! And why was he killed? Is it, as the investigator suggests, because he is gay? Then it was a hate crime, and that means any gay person could have been targeted equally, which means that the perpetrator is a terrorist who, by mere dint of fact that he disagrees with what that person is, could very likely kill again. Treat that person like a potential mass-murderer. Don’t hand-wave the whole incident away with “this kind of thing happens”. If you do, you are complicit. Also, you’re a bigot and an asshole.
Here’s a report on the murder (in Spanish) from PrimeraHora.com. Said activist Pedro Julio Serrano: “It is inconceivable that the investigating officer suggests that the victim deserved his fate, like a woman deserves rape for wearing a short skirt. We demand condemnation of this investigator and demand that Superintendente Figueroa Sancha replace him with someone capable of investigating this case without prejudice.”
Hear hear.
Hat tip Godless Blogger
I think that officer needs to get a good swift kick in the ass personally. Having been to Puerto Rico and having family there, i can say that I am kind of shocked that this happened. Most of the areas of P.R. that I have family in are pretty gay friendly, lots of openly gay citizens and what not. Then again those are mostly the more cosmopolitan areas of San Juan and Mayagueiz and what not. I have family in the more rural areas, mainly the interior of the island, some of the areas there though are still pretty undeveloped and kind of just out there. Though that is still no reason for this, hopefully they will catch the guy or guys who did this.
This post made me remember about a similar incident in the states many years ago. A boy named Matthew sheppard was beaten and tied to a fence on the side of the road where he was left to die. The people who did this did it because Matthew Sheppard was gay.
His mother has started a foundation in efforts to raise awareness of such hate crimes.
http://www.matthewshepard.org/site/PageServer
Just thought i’d put that out there.
Shannon: the article did mention that there was a gay community that the boy was “very well known” within, which is heartening in a way — they’re safe enough to form communities without much fear of reprisal. Unless of course one of your fellows gets murdered and dismembered, at which point investigators go all “welp, that happens!” Hate crimes should be prosecuted as terrorism, in my opinion, as their intended effect is to terrorize other members of the same outgroup.
Miranda: that’s the case that spawned the Matthew Shepard Act, which expands laws regarding hate crimes and makes hate crime prosecution easier and punishments more extreme. This is also the law that the more ridiculous theist lawmakers in the States are trying to repeal, calling the case all manner of things, up to and including “a hoax”.
Maybe one day we as a species will stop killing one another for being different.
We can be assured, according to the Zdenny application of logic to love, that the murderers were not Christian. They would have had to have been atheists, which will narrow down the list of suspects rather quickly.
Bastard idiot cop, like the judge that gave light sentences in Dallas to fagbashers because the victims deserved it.