“The attackers forced the man to strip to his underwear and tied him to a chair, the police said. One of the teenage victims [who’d been sodomized with a toilet plunger] was still there. The ‘Goonies’ ordered him to attack the man. The teenager hit him in the face and burned him with a cigarette on his nipple and penis as the others jeered and shouted gay slurs, the police said. Then the attackers whipped the man with a chain and sodomized him with a small baseball bat.” That’s the nytimes.com‘s description of the kidnapping and assault on three men in the Bronx. Four years later a court’s sentenced the leader of the assault [Idelfonso Mendez, above] to 14-years in prison. As for his eight accomplices . . .
Also convicted in the attack was David Rivera, 24, who pleaded guilty to one count of burglary in the first degree after admitting that he took cash, credit cards and a television from the home of a victim. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Nelson Falu, 20, pleaded guilty to one count of robbery in the first degree for threatening a victim with a baseball bat and taking personal property. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Elmer Confresi, 26, pleaded guilty to one count of attempted gang assault in the first degree and received four years in prison.
Jose Dominguez, 26, pleaded guilty to one count of attempted assault in the first degree and was sentenced to four and a half years in prison.
And Ruddy Vargas, 26, pleaded guilty to a count of robbery in the third degree and was sentenced to two to six years in prison.
The three victims all received life sentences, if you know what I mean. Which could well have been avoided if one of them had been exercising his natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms, and shot one or more of his attackers. As he would have had every legal right to do. If he hadn’t been in New York City, that is.
Quite why members of the LGBT community don’t see it that way is beyond me. No matter how many hate crime laws are in effect, no matter how severe the penalties for violating them, no matter how effective the police are at arresting, prosecuting and jailing offenders; no matter how much sensitivity training is given to the general population, LGBTs will always be a target of violence.
Defend your gun rights, defend yourself. That is all.