According to NYPD sources, Anthony Bray, confessed to attacking Furtch outside a McDonald's on W. Third Street in Greenwich Village - but insisted it wasn't a hate crime because he claimed that he too is also gay.
An unnamed police source said that Bray told detectives he pummeled Furtch,"because he was disrespectful to him." An NYPD spokesperson said that Bray, who has prior arrests for marijuana possession, graffiti and robbery, was charged with misdemeanor assault and also indicated that police investigators haven't ruled out the possibility of hitting Bray with hate crime charges.
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What does it say, again, about those who subscribe to the bystander effect and claim that gay on gay violence doesn't exist?
Let's assume the assailant is also gay as he states, and not being faux-gay to try to avoid a hate crime charge.
This incident reminds us that homosexual people are no more and no less unpleasant, no more and no less violent, no more and no less law abiding, no more and no less [insert thing of your choice here] than heterosexual members of the human race.
As a homosexual man I lean towards the "Oh, he's gay, he must be fine" school of thought. I know it's wrong and stupid to think that way.
If I were a heterosexual man I might be thinking that homosexual men are all beneath my contempt as human beings. I might try to use this incident to seek to offer a proof for that.
That would be a stupid and wrong thing to do, too.
Assaults are assaults. I detest the crime category of 'hate crime' for the reasons above. Here one guy hit and hurt another guy. That is assault. We need to pull back from making a simple assault a hate crime and treat it as what t is. Something nasty, but 'just' a crime.
Anthony Bray, the suspect, was caught on video, so the notion that there was no hate involved is odd, because said video shows that Bray and his accomplice left the McDonald's to go after Furtch.
The question to be asked is whether that McDonald's has a security video and captured the incident itself.
The 'hate crime' designation is, as far as I'm aware, to deal with assaults (and whatever else) that is motivated solely by hate. In other words, but for the perpetrator's hate, there would not be any crime committed. I do understand what you mean, Tim, and in some sense I agree with you, but in another I don't.
I also feel that there is a difference when someone is killed in the course of a robbery as opposed to being killed by targeting them. I feel, on some deep level, that motivation for the crime should matter. The man who kills his wife who is in agony without any possibility of recovery is NOT the same as the man who kidnaps a child then kills him/her. The humanity of the perpetrator is important, in my view, and we would do ourselves a disservice to just bring everything down to the simple act itself.
NG, I see what you are saying. My view is that a video shows simply the assault. All sorts of things may have provoked it, including hate for the victim's orientation. That video, unless it has sound, cannot give evidence of anything more than a deeply unpleasant assault.
Trab, I don't disagree with you. I just don't like the extra veneer of political correctness that has been put on top of a set of useful laws that already existed.
Damian Furtch, with his hammy "victim" photos, probably didn't want the attackers caught so Furtch could play it up as the new Matthew Shepard (since he's an aspiring actor). Now with the claims of Bray, things aren't so clear. I believe there was some gay-on-gay nasty attitudes back-and-forth in the McDonald's. But I could be wrong, and won't conclude until there's more info.
Well, MJJM, you 'believe' this. But were you there? WHat can you possibly conclude unless you were present as a witness?
People are able to "believe" something, in the sense that that would be their guess, while still admitting they won't totally conclude until there's more info. Just as you yourself can't conclude anything.
Though I'll also come clean in that I might be partial because I know Damian Furtch is a transplant to NYC, and I've always found the NYC transplant-clique to be the snottiest most unbearable bunch of evil pricks. But I guess that's why they'd never choose me for the jury.
MJJM: Unfortunately your speculation is defamatory. You attack the victim with your words. That's really not a very useful behaviour.
That is the major difference between our posts.
And your second post in this batch makes it appear that you have some sort of personal delight in running a smear campaign. It would not surprise me if the blog owner did not remove your comment and, naturally, any replies to you. This would not be censorship. It would be removing defamatory and potentially actionable remarks.
Cool, Tim. Come live in NYC and get to know the types and then we'll talk.
I do my best not to make snap judgments based on a stereotype. There are many stereotypes that I dislike, but each has the right to being treated fairly.
You may, if you wish, have the final word here.
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