Hate Crimes: March 2005 Archives

(Santa Fe, New Mexico) About 300 people attended a candlelight vigil Saturday night to show support for a young gay man who was beaten unconscious a week ago outside a Santa Fe hotel.

James Maestas, 21, remained hospitalized but spoke from his bed Saturday for the first time since the beating. Police said a group of at least three men confronted him outside a restaurant where he had eaten with a group of friends. [...]

Rachel Rosen, a friend of the Maestas family and chairwoman of Equality New Mexico, said Maestas spoke from his hospital bed for the first time Saturday when he asked for a mirror.

“I’ve got to see this face,” Maestas said, according to Rosen. Upon seeing his injuries, Maestas added: “That’s the fattest lip I’ve ever seen.” (source)

I was so afraid that we had another Matthew Shepard on our hands with this young man. I was so relieved that he will live and hopefully fully recover.

Gov. Bill Richardson attended the vigil and said, “What happened to James Maestas should never happen anywhere, on any planet. We as a society have got to find ways to end hatred.”

If the governor really wants to do something to send a message against violence based on hatred, perhaps he and the state should consider a hate crimes law. My understanding it that, although the state police have called this a “hate crime”, New Mexico does not have a hate crimes law to enforce that label.

Related Stories:
March 2, 2005 - Hate Crime in Santa Fe
March 3, 2005 - Man beaten in gay bashing clings to life

AIDS has been with us in this country for 25 years, and we still have morons in this country, after all kinds of people are sick and dying with AIDS, who think they can get away with saying something like this. Just amazing.

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- A businessman who made derogatory comments to an AIDS awareness group at the Capitol has resigned from his position as first vice president for the Rental Housing Association of Puget Sound.

“Looks like it’s anal sex week,” Lou Novak loudly remarked as a group from the Life Long AIDS Alliance walked though the state House office building.

The group included a 13-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy. The boy’s family had recently been forced to move because of AIDS-related prejudice in his neighborhood. (source)

This is an update from the man who was beaten in New Mexico. I originally wrote about the story yesterday. It sounds to me as if the beating he received was more severe than reported. Now he is “clinging to life”. It’s so sad.

I know this is tough to read, but these are the injuries that he received. This is what hate, in it’s purest form is.

The 21-year-old Santa Fe man who police say was savagely beaten in a gay-bashing incident last weekend is clinging to life in critical condition, a family spokeswoman said Wednesday. [...]

Maestas (pictured) apparently was kicked so hard the food in his stomach came up his throat and went into his lungs, Rosen said. Stomach acid badly burned his lungs, she said, and he is breathing with the help of a respirator.

He has been running a fever and must be monitored closely, because the risk of infection is high, Rosen said.

Maestas’ face and mouth are bruised and swollen, she said. “They haven’t even been able to see if he has all his lower teeth because his lower lip is so mangled.”

While a brain scan didn’t reveal any damage, she said, it’s too early to tell for sure. Maestas has not regained consciousness, and doctors are keeping him sedated, she said.

Doctors don’t know whether he will suffer permanent damage from the attack if he pulls through, Rosen said. (source)

The world is full of savage animals who have no value of life and completely devoid of decency.

Related Articles
March 2, 2005 - Hate Crime in Santa Fe
June 18, 2006 - Santa Fe Bashers to get No Prison Time

Related Articles
March 3, 2005 - Man beaten in gay bashing clings to life
June 18, 2006 - Santa Fe Bashers to get No Prison Time

Also see Update on 03/03/2005

(Santa Fe, New Mexico) Three men have been charged in the beating of a Santa Fe gay man that was so vicious he was left unconscious.

James Maestas (pictured right), 21, and his partner Joshua Stockham 24, of Albuquerque had just finished lunch with several female friends at a Santa Fe restaurant and had gone outside for a smoke when five men drove into the parking lot. The men attempted to talk up the girls and at some point got into an argument with Maestas and Stockham.

A police statement says that the argument escalated with one of the men calling Maestas and Stockham “faggots” and trying to provoke a fight.

Stockham, Maestas and the females got into a car and began driving away. The men then began throwing rocks at the car according to the statement said.

A man identified as the person who had waited on them in the restaurant, David Trinidad, 17, was just finishing work and came outside. The statement said that Trinidad knew the five men and joined in the rock throwing.

Trinidad, the police statement said, learned the men were staying at nearby hotel while he was serving them.

He told investigators that he and the five men followed the group to the hotel and along the way they “pumped” themselves up by talking about “fucking those faggots up”. The statement also quotes Trinidad as telling investigators that they referred to Stockham and Maestas as “fucking white boys.”

They arrived at the hotel just behind Stockham and Maestas and began beating the pair while yelling anti-gay epithets.

Maestas fell to the ground unconscious. (source)

Other sources
Suspects in gay bashing attend first court hearing
Gay couple bashed in Santa Fe, N.M.

Trinidad had overheard where the two men were staying, and the group went to that nearby motel. Maturin and Medina attacked Maestas while Trinidad and another man hit Stockham, the statement read. “Maturin said that as he approached them he saw the two victims kissing, and he pushed them and started punching victim Maestas,” court records state. “He said he was joined by suspect Isaia Medina, who, according to Maturin, really started ‘pounding’ the victim.”

According to Albuquerque TV station KRQE, Maestas was beaten unconscious. “He was found by a stairwell in the hotel. He had been beaten pretty severely. He sustained several facial and head injuries,” said Eric Johnson of the Santa Fe police department. Police say Maestas was in critical condition Monday at St. Vincent Hospital in Santa Fe, where he was on a respirator.

All of this has me thinking that maybe (and I’m totally serious about this), that I should stop by Sports Authority and buy a baseball bat for the trunk of my car, or get a stun gun. I’ve thought about the times I have been called a faggot while on lunch or whatever, and nothing had come of it because I just ignored it. But I know that anytime someone calls you a faggot, it’s not hard to have that develop into violence.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- More than 100 people gathered on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Tuesday evening to show support for a gay student who was taunted and beaten.

Police called the attack on a gay student who was beaten by a gang of six or seven men a hate crime Tuesday. They said the victim suffered broken bones but wasn’t hospitalized. [...]

The student went home to Charlotte to recover and is now afraid to return to campus, friends said. He has already pulled his name from the student directory for safety reasons. (source)

I can relate to the student being scared and not ever wanting to go back to school. The same thing happened to me in high school. It’s something you really never get over.

Other sources:
Some Want N.C. Hate Crime Law Changed To Include Gays

03/02/2005 UPDATE

Beaten UNC Student Speaks Out
Thomas Stockwell, a 21-year-old junior, says he was walking alone down Franklin Street early Friday morning when a group of young men made derogatory comments about his sexual orientation.

"I took off running to this corner, Columbia and Franklin, where they caught up to me, turned around and punched me in the face," Stockwell said. He suffered a broken nose, black eye and bruises.