SF police investigating reported bomb threats to LYRIC as hate crime
San Francisco police are investigating two recent telephoned bomb threats against queer youth organization LYRIC, located in the Castro LGBTQ neighborhood, as possible hate crimes.LYRIC received the first bomb threat April 29, forcing the organization's youth clients and staff members to leave the Purple House building in the Castro that serves as its offices.
A second threat, 24 days later, followed at 3:30 p.m., May 23, as after-school programs were underway, said Adam Michael Royston, communications director for the nonprofit, in a telephone interview with the Bay Area Reporter.
Royston, a gay man who joined LYRIC in November 2021 when new Executive Director and President Laura Lala-Chávez took the helm, said the two calls "definitely were related.
The second one built on the first one."Monday's call was a recording of a man quoting Leviticus 18:22, Royston said, the notorious biblical passage that states, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." The line is typically quoted by fundamentalist Christians as a warning to LGBTQ people.
