aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Hate in Savannah on St. Patrick’s Day?

I love Savannah, but I’d stay far away on St. Patrick’s Day. Then, that’s no different than staying away from New York’s Fifth Avenue on St. Patrick’s Day.

Turns out there was an alleged hate crime this year in Savannah. I applaud the police response:

Interim Police Chief Willie Lovett ordered an internal investigation Tuesday after a gay man said police did not help him when he was attacked the day after St. Patrick’s Day. [...]

“There seems to be an accusation the officer didn’t do what he should have done,” Lovett said. “I want to be assured and the public to be assured that any time an officer doesn’t handle anything properly, we’ll look into it.”

Lovett said he wants to find out which story is correct: the victim’s or the one outlined in the police report.

“Apparently there seems to be a lot of accusations that this agency is discriminating against gays and lesbians,” Lovett said. “That is not a stigma I want to attach to this department. That is simply not true.”

Georgia Equality disagrees:

“In three weeks, there have been three separate life-threatening hate biased attacks and the city has allowed the attackers to go free thereby giving them a calling card to spread their violence of hate and bigotry,” said Chuck Bowen, the organization’s executive director. [...]

“The Savannah Police Department sent a clear message this past Friday night-don’t expose your breasts or urinate in public or you’ll be arrested and hauled off to jail and the keys will be thrown away,” Bowen said. “But beat someone near death because they are different from you, and they’ll give you the keys to the city.”

I’m fine with calling for an investigation but I would tone down the rhetoric until there’s proof of something more than “Police were rude to me.”