Tag Archives: hate crimes

Investigators found white supremacist materials in the home of Brandon McInerney, the 14 year old killer of gay teen Lawrence King. The materials were a “prime consideration” in the adding of a hate crimes charge. Investigators seized white supremacist materials, including doodlings of Nazi swastikas, from the bedroom of Brandon McInerney, the 14-year-old Oxnard student accused of gunning down his …

Shouting “Kill the gays” and “Allah Akbar”, Islamic rioters attacked participants in yesterday’s first-ever gay pride event in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Dozens of homophobic hooligans attacked participants of Bosnia’s first-ever gay rights festival in Sarajevo on Wednesday, leaving at least two journalists and one police officer injured. The scuffle broke out at the end of the opening ceremony of the four-day …

Yesterday a Denver judge rejected a request to lower the charge in the case of murdered transwoman Angie Zapata, after her killer’s lawyer said that Allen Andrade was “provoked” into killing Zapata when she smiled at him after he demanded to know if she was male. Only when Andrade grabbed at Zapata’s crotch did he discover the truth. But when …

The 14 year-old killer of gay teen Lawrence King pleaded not guilty to premeditated murder and a hate crime yesterday in a ploy to have the charges reduced to manslaughter. Brandon McInerney entered the plea in Ventura County Superior Court on Thursday. McInerney is charged as an adult with first degree murder and a hate crime for the Feb. 12 …

The murderer of Colorado transwoman Angie Zapata has been charged with a hate crime, adding a potential 18 months to his sentence. Zapata’s supportive sister says that she had long been worried about the crowd of “dangerous men” that Zapata had been hanging with. “One time she came home crying saying, ‘Why, Monica, why won’t people accept me?’ ” Monica …

Michelangelo Signorile has interviewed Carla Lewis, a transgender woman who was inside the Knoxville Unitarian Church when last week’s shooting happened. Signorile: This is a clip from my interview with Carla Lewis, who was inside the Tennessee Valley Universalist Unitarian Church when a gunman opened fire little over a week ago. She came on the program last week to take …

Police won’t release the contents of the letter left by the Knoxville church shooter and the local gay church wants to know what it says. The man who ministers to East Tennessee’s largest gay and lesbian congregation says his church won’t rest easy until members know what Jim David Adkisson wrote. “The more clarity, the better,” said the Rev. Bob …

Police searching the home of Tennessee church shooter Jim David Adkisson found the following books: “Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder” by radio talk show host Michael Savage, “Let Freedom Ring” by talk show host Sean Hannity, and “The O’Reilly Factor,” by television talk show host Bill O’Reilly. I’m sure those three’s chests are swelling with pride today. Seriously. I …

Days after the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville put up a sign welcoming gays to worship, yesterday a gunman shouting “hateful words” killed two people and injured seven others during a youth performance of the musical Annie at the church. The gunman was tackled by congregants and eventually taken into police custody. Jim D. Adkisson, 58, was charged …

Acting on a petition filed by the Christianist group Repent America, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has upheld a lower court’s ruling that struck down that state’s 2002 hate crimes law, saying it was inappropriately attached to an unrelated bill. Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision striking down amendments that added sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, gender, and mental …

A Ventura County, California judge has ruled that the 14-year-old killer of gay teen Lawrence King will be tried as an adult. Relying on past court decisions, a judge ruled Thursday that trying a 14-year-old boy accused of murder in an adult court does not violate the constitution, swatting down legal arguments raised by the boy’s attorney that it was …

Ahmet Yidlz, a 26 year-old old gay man, was murdered in Turkey last week in what some are calling the country’s first gay “honor” killing. In a corner of Istanbul today, the man who might be described as Turkey’s gay poster boy will be buried – a victim, his friends believe, of the country’s deepening friction between an increasingly liberal …

A beloved Episcopal priest and several transgender youth were attacked Monday in a possible hate crime outside of a shelter for LGBT youth in Queens. A priest who runs a shelter specializing in outreach to homeless transgender youths was beaten with construction equipment and paint cans by a group of teenagers in a possible hate crime, authorities said Tuesday. Two …

Hungarian nationalists fire-bombed a Budapest bathhouse yesterday as that city readied for this weekend’s gay pride events. A gay establishment in the Hungarian capital has been targeted, the second attack in a week. Four petrol bombs were thrown into sauna called Magnum in the early hours of yesterday morning. One man was slightly injured by fumes. The bombers had called …

More fuel for the Matthew Shepard Act, sadly. A report released Tuesday shows that violent attacks on members of the LGBT community nationwide grew by 24 percent in 2007 over the previous year. The 78-page report was prepared by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs with input from more than 30 of its members across the U.S. The number of …

The British embassy in Belgrade will issue a pamphlet of “advice” to gay fans heading to the Eurovision Song Contest in Serbia this month, after fears were raised that local fascists plan to attack homosexual attendees. The British Embassy in Belgrade is funding the production of an information leaflet for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people planning to visit the …

An alliance of 27 LGBT groups is asking the Ventura County, California district attorney to try the 14-year old murderer of Lawrence King (left) as a juvenile. Here’s a statement from the alliance, which includes Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, GLSEN, and the Transgender Law Center: “We are saddened and outraged by the murder of junior high …

The LA Times has an interesting piece on the continuing clash between Sacramento’s gay community and the thousands of evangelical Slavic immigrants who have relocated there in recent years. With as many as 100,000 newcomers from republics such as Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, the Sacramento region has one of the nation’s largest concentrations of Soviet immigrants. Most began arriving …

The Los Angeles Times has published a piece investigating the backgrounds of Lawrence King and his murderer Brandon McInerney. For teens living in a shelter for abused and neglected children, school can provide a daily dose of normalcy, a place to fit in, a chance to be just another kid. It didn’t turn out that way for Lawrence King. According …

Florida’s Fight Out Loud has compiled a sobering video accounting of the violence against LGBT people in 2008, which is already shaping up to be the worst year in recent memory.