Remembering The Unarmed Black Man Killed By A Cop For Being In A Cruising Area
Remembering The Unarmed Black Man Killed By A Cop For Being In A Cruising Area
With two police officers avoiding prosecution for killing unarmed black men (Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, and just yesterday, Eric Garner in New York City), the nation is engaging in a heated debate about how law enforcement treats communities of color. It’s worth remembering that four years ago, a high-profile case in New Jersey already demonstrated the issue. In that instance, a police officer shot and killed an unarmed black man after confronting him in a cruising area.
DeFarra “Dean” Gaymon was a married father of four and the CEO of a successful credit union in Atlanta when he returned to Newark in July 2010 for his 30th high school reunion. While his reunion was taking place, he lay dying in a hospital from What happened the night of July 16th depends solely on the word of a single police officer, who was never prosecuted for the crime. It’s all depressingly familiar.
According to the Officer Edward Esposito, Gaymon was “engaged in a sexual act” (apparently masturbating) when he approached the officer, who was dressed in plain clothes, in a Newark park. The park had been the scene of more than 200 arrests over an 18 month period by officers who apparently made a career out of arresting gay men for lewd behavior because there are so few other crimes to pursue in New Jersey.
Esposito says he was bending over to pick up handcuffs (really) when Gaymon propositioned him without any encouragement. Standing up, Esposito told Gaymon he was under arrest.
What followed was, by all accounts of anyone who knew Gaymon, totally unbelievable. Esposito says Gaymon pushed him away, threatened to kill Esposito, reached into his pocket and lunged at the officer in an attempt to disarm him. Esposito says he fired a shot in self defense.
The Essex County sheriff’s department expressed regret about the episode. They also made a point of portraying Gaymon as a bit of a pervert in search of sex in public by playing up the cruising area setting. A grand jury refused to indict Esposito and the state attorney general refused to investigate the case. Esposito had been involved in three other violent arrests in the park.
Gaymon’s family just settled a lawsuit against Essex County for $1.5 million. Of course, that doesn’t bring Gaymon back.
JohnGallagher
WATCH LIVE: NASA's Orion Test Flight Marks the First Step on the Long Road to Mars
WATCH LIVE: NASA's Orion Test Flight Marks the First Step on the Long Road to Mars
NASA’s Orion spacecraft is set to have its first test flight this morning from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. If the test flight proves successful, the next-gen space capsule is expected to one day carry astronauts to the moon, asteroids, and Mars.
NBC News reports:
The planned 4.5-hour mission — known as Exploration Flight Test 1, or EFT-1 — isn’t carrying people. It’s an uncrewed flight, meant to check critical systems that can’t be fully tested on Earth, including the craft’s heat shield and parachutes.
The data gathered from more than 1,200 sensors will be factored into the construction of more flightworthy Orion spaceships, with the aim of flying astronauts for the first time in 2021. If NASA holds to its schedule, the cone-shaped spacecraft would send crews to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, and to Mars and its moons starting in the 2030s.
“We’re now on the way to Mars, and that’s what’s most important,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told NBC News in advance of liftoff.
The launch was scheduled a little after 7 am (ET) but has been delayed due to high ground winds.
Watch the launch, AFTER THE JUMP…
Kyler Geoffroy
Was This Young Gay Man Murdered By His Closeted Lover? Police Don’t Seem To Care.
Was This Young Gay Man Murdered By His Closeted Lover? Police Don’t Seem To Care.
On the morning of October 31, 22-year-old Dionte Greene (pictured) of Kanas City, Missouri was shot in the face while sitting in the driver seat of his idling car. His suspected killer? An allegedly “straight” man who may have agreed to meet him for sex.
“My son … he was quiet – not a problem child,” Dionte’s mother, Coshelle Greene, told Zach Stafford at The Guardian in an interview late last month. “Being that he wasn’t a street person, and didn’t have enemies, I lean towards it having to be someone who was on the down low or someone so against gay people that they would do this.”
According to sources, the day before he was killed, Greene planned to attend a “turn-about” party where people show up dressed as the opposite gender. Friends say he had been chatting with a man online who claimed to be “on the down low.” The man was reportedly unsure about hooking up with Greene. Ultimately, however, he did agree to meet with him in a quiet residential area near the young man’s home.
Greene was on the phone with a friend when the man approached his car.
“He looks just like his Facebook picture,” he allegedly told the friend.
Then the friend reported hearing yelling before the line went dead.
Greene’s mother told Stafford she now fears that since her son’s body was discovered in a low-income, high-crime area that is predominantly black, police will classify the case as just another “black on black” crime rather than what she believes it really is: a hate crime. She thinks her son was murdered because he was gay, and that his murderer wasn’t sure if he wanted to be.
Kansas City Police Cepartment’s recently appointed LGBT liaison, Rebecca Caster, an out lesbian, said it’s unlikely this will be investigated as a hate crime because Greene’s murderer had been meeting him for sex.
“If someone is actually engaged in ‘the act,’ then these are not hate crimes,” she said. “The thing is, hate crimes need to be, ‘I can’t stand the fact that you are gay so I am going to drag you behind a truck. I don’t know you, I don’t care.’”
But Stafford disagrees, saying that, “homophobia [is] not just something that makes someone drag you behind a truck, but [is] a sickness that can make someone kiss and then kill–simply because someone didn’t want their secret to get out.”
He then notes that Greene’s murder is one of at least seven similar cases involving LGBT people in Kansas City since 2010 that were also not classified as hate crimes.
Jack Levin, a professor of sociology and criminology at Northeastern University, pointed out why making the hate crime distinction is important in a case like this.
“Hate crimes are message crimes, and hate-crime laws send a message back,” he said. “They send a message to the perpetrator that we do not encourage or support him–that we don’t agree with his intolerance.”
Of course, before any charges can be made, a suspect needs to be apprehended. Over more than a month after Greene’s murder, police still have not made any arrests.
“It’s been really tough,” Greene’s friend, Star Palmer, said. “This shouldn’t have happened to him. Not Dionte.”
Related stories:
Gay Man Left Paralyzed After Being Brutally Stabbed In Possible Hate Crime
WATCH: Alleged LGBT Hate Crime Filmed On New York City Subway During Pride
Slain MS Politician Marco McMillian May Have Fallen Victim To Gay-Panic Killer
Graham Gremore is a columnist and contributor for Queerty and Life of the Law. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
Graham Gremore
Sudije i sutkinje, tužitelji i tužiteljice o edukaciji o pravima LGBT osoba @TV Liberty
Sudije i sutkinje, tužitelji i tužiteljice o edukaciji o pravima LGBT osoba @TV Liberty
Emisija se realizira u sklopu projekta "Coming out! Zagovaranje i zastita prava LGBT" osoba koji implementira Fondacija Heinrich Böll – Ured u Sarajevu, zajedno sa partnerima Fondacijom…
EAD 315: LGBT Leadership History Project
EAD 315: LGBT Leadership History Project
I’m a student at Michigan State University studying Women & Gender Studies, with a focus on LGBTQIA+ Studies. For my LGBT Leadership Training Course, I had to a pick a leader from history to…
LGBT Prade Rally 11
LGBT Prade Rally 15
The 'Dirty 30' With Porn Star Levi Michaels
The 'Dirty 30' With Porn Star Levi Michaels
When I tell people I live with a porn star, I usually catch their eyes quickly sparkling with excitement. The questions begin spewing forth, but only about 20 seconds pass before their disappointment sets in. No, it’s not one constant orgy. No, he’s not always naked. No, I don’t hear symphonic moans coming from his room at all hours. Sorry.
Levi Michaels, besides getting boinked on film on the reg, is, for the most part, an incredibly normal guy. He does the dishes, helps take care of my cat God, and always picks up the squishier avocados from Whole Foods for me. He loves getting railed on camera, yes, but he also loves curling up on the couch with me on Sunday evenings and watching The Comeback.
After reading countless interviews with porn stars filled with questions like “Top or bottom?” and “Spit or swallow?”, I thought it time to show folks the wholesome side of porn actors. Thus I presented Levi with 30 rapid-fire questions to help you get to know the man behind the man who’s often getting it in the behind:
LGBT in ME3
LGBT in ME3
via YouTube Capture.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iXH-fwqyv4&feature=youtube_gdata
