Tag: hate crime

A recent study by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism (CSHE) at California State University San Bernardino found that hate crimes across the U.S. have risen by nine percent over the last year including against LGBTQ people, Jews and people of color. Their study looked at 2,009 cases in 30 U.S. cities and found that hate crimes have been steadily rising since 2014 with some city increases outnumbering decreases nearly two-to-one. Last year’s nine percent rise “marked...

Some people just never learn. 30-year-old Charles Yarbrough is being charged with multiple hate crimes after repeatedly breaking into and vandalizing a local church in Connecticut because he believed its congregation members and pastor “were supporting and pushing the LGBT agenda.” Yarbrough was arrested on June 27 after police say he broke into the Memorial United Methodist Church in downtown Milford, Connecticut and slashed two chairs on the church’s altar and carving into an antique wooden banister. He was upset because the...

Two gay married owners of the Fine Fellows Creamery ice cream shop in Cape May, New Jersey, say that they’ve been subject to vandalism and homophobic comments after displaying rainbow flags and stickers during Pride Month. Dustin Piccolo and his husband David Kinsey say that the large and smaller rainbow flags they put up this year were torn down and stolen, as was a small rainbow flag sticker on their shop’s front door. Piccolo told 6abc.com: This year we celebrated pride month...

Well, this is awkward. A spokesman for SAVE, South Florida’s largest queer advocacy group, has issued an apology after honoring four men accused of a violent attack on a gay couple in what police are investigating as a hate crime. Tony Lima, Executive Director for SAVE, released a Facebook apology video on Friday claiming he spoke in “haste” following a ceremony in which he recognized the four men for their charity work while speaking at an annual Champions of Equality Gala...

"Of course I took it personally." A rainbow flag hanging outside an LGBTQ-themed Baltimore store was burned last weekend, Baltimore Sun reports. Police are investigating the incident as a hate crime. Surveillance footage captured two unknown men fleeing the scene after setting fire to the Pride flag at Same Gender Love in the Mount Vernon neighborhood. “My first reaction was full of emotion,” says Marva Laws, who has owned the boutique for a year. “I was very angry because this is mine....

New York City police have arrested 54-year-old Allah Allasheed, a man who allegedly sucker punched a 20-year-old lesbian in the subway in late November after he saw another woman kiss her. He has been charged with assault as a hate crime. The attack occurred on a Manhattan-bound E train during evening rush hour on November 30. Police report that Allasheed called his victim a “slur based upon his interpretation of the victim’s sexual orientation” before punching her. More specifically, he allegedly...

A gay couple in Las Vegas, Nevada, were the target of a violent hate crime that sent them both to the hospital. Charles Clements told local news affiliate FOX5 that when he picked his boyfriend Vincent up from work last Thursday night, they had no idea they were followed home. As he was unlocking the front door of their home, Clements heard Vincent call his name. “I was about to unlock the door, the next thing I hear, he’s calling my name,”...

A teenager who was beaten up on a bus in Bristol by a man yelling anti-gay slurs has spoken out about the attack. Kydis Zellinger, who uses the pronouns they/them, says they are proud to be part of the LGBT+ community and that the assault “won’t stop me be from being who I am.” The 18-year-old was attacked by 27-year old Paul Austin, of Inns Court, on October 15. Austin pled guilty to assault by beating at Bristol Magistrates Court on October...

Two men were viciously attacked early Sunday morning as they left a gay bar in Brooklyn, New York. According to the local ABC affiliate, the two men - one 29-years-old, the other 34-years-old - had just left the Metropolitan Bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when a man approaching them called out with a homophobic slur. The incident quickly escalated with the attacker punching the 34-year-old in the face, and throwing the 29-year-old against a tree. Both were knocked unconscious. The good news is...

LGBT rights advocates say they will fly rainbow flags in the stadium in spite of the threats LGBT soccer fans heading to the World Cup in Russia have already been warned not to publicly display affection, and members of the transgender community told to bring a friend with them to the bathroom to avoid attacks. Now there are reports of anti-LGBT Russians threatening violence against the community. Joe White of LGBT soccer fan group Pride in Football said it has received...

EXCLUSIVE: One of the gay guys received 30 internal stitches and 52 stitches on his hand An unidentified attacker verbally abused a gay couple, then stabbed them in the neck, back and hand. Christopher Giovanni Huizar, 19, and Gabriel Enrique Roman, 23, went out on Saturday night (26 May) to the Church Nightclub in Denver, Colorado. They live downtown, so decided to walk home because ‘it was nice weather out’. Then Huizar told Gay Star News what happened next. He said: ‘When we passed...

Aaron Salazar's family believes the attack was a hate crime, but Amtrak officials are claiming it may have been a suicide attempt A gay student attending Portland State University in Oregon was brutally beaten. What happened? Aaron Salazar was taking the train from his home in Colorado back to his school’s campus in Oregon on 15 May. On the way, he had a 10-hour layover in California. Salazar decided to stay with a friend he had made on the journey, and texted...

A Scottish gay couple were attacked while walking outside a night club. 32-year-old Andy Millin and 26-year-old Cameron Stringer were attacked after leaving CC Blooms in Edinburgh, Scotland on Sunday at 3am. As Millin told the Scottish Sun: "We crossed the road holding hands and there was a couple of guys behind us. One of them ran up and kicked Cameron in the back. He was about to attack him but my first instinct was to get him out of the way....

Vincent Joseph O’Sullivan has been charged with petty theft, making criminal threats and a hate crime. A California man has been arrested after stealing rainbow flags and threatening to detonate pipe bombs at a local supermarket. Sheriffs say Vincent Joseph O’Sullivan, 55, planned to set off bombs at the Guerneville Safeway and the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office substation in order to injure deputies and members of the LGBT community. On Saturday O’Sullivan was booked on suspicion of petty theft, making criminal...