Police investigating 2 attacks near gay bar

[Quetzal]

Police investigating 2 attacks near gay bar

Honolulu police detectives investigating the Sept. 18 assault of a man walking home from Hula's Bar and Lei Stand will meet this week to determine if there is any connection between that attack and the beating of a woman on her way to the same club just five days later.

The female tourist said she was attacked outside Hula's, a popular gay nightclub in Waikiki, by a man who first asked if she is a lesbian. When she said yes, the man hit her, she said in an interview yesterday.

Detectives investigating the two attacks have not conferred yet because one of them is working on a case on the Mainland, said Det. Larry Lawson, who is handling the most recent assault.

Lawson said he has no leads and is hoping that the public will come forward with information about suspects. Only then will detectives know if the cases are linked by anti-gay hostilities.

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Police investigating 2 attacks near gay bar

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. WOW

And in Waikiki, no less

[Quetzal]

2. I am really shocked

However, we do have Mike Gabbard running this year for Congress, so homophobes do have societal representation here in Hawaii.

[TaleWgnDg]

3. that "Honolulu Advertiser" (newspaper) article written by . . .

Peter Boylan, is ambiguous.

The last two sentences that you've quoted are ambiguous. The court will not admit the victim's statement of discrimination in order to prove a hate-crime? Or, the discriminatory information must be linked, one case to the other, in order to prove a series of hate-crimes?

Maybe it's my training . . . reporters sometime scrabble facts incoherently. I know the correct answer but the typical reader is left unknowing . . . sheesh.

[KamaAina]

4. That's why we're still a two-paper town

and why the often apathetic community rallied to "Save Our Star-Bulletin". Life with only the Cat Box Liner would kinda suck.

http://starbulletin.com/2004/09/29/news/index2.html

(ACHTUNG! Majorly gross picture of the victim!)

On Sept. 18, Tim Noreuil had just turned onto Kuhio Avenue, about a block from Hula's, a popular gay bar, which he had just left before he was attacked.

Noreuil had said he did not believe his attack was related to him coming out of Hula's.

Honolulu police could not say whether the cases were related, but Crimestoppers coordinator Det. Letha DeCaires notes that in Noreuil's case, there was "no evidence by the behavior or the words spoken ... at this time" that there was an anti-gay motive....

The hate-crime law permits an extended term in sentencing, but the offender must be found guilty of the first charge, and the jury must also find him guilty of the hate crime, said Jim Fulton, executive assistant for the city Prosecutor's Office.

Ahhhhh, that's better!

[KamaAina]

5. Don't forget the time the gay-friendly church was torched

just last year, right in my old neighborhood, a couple of miles from Waikiki. The minister was soon run out of town -- but not because he was gay, so stop saying that...

http://starbulletin.com/2003/10/14/news/story9.html

Both Whitman and trustee Diane McGaughey said Beckman's sexual orientation was not an issue. "It is a personnel matter, between the board and Vaughn," McGaughey said.

But a supporter disagreed Sunday. "I think it is at least a little bit about his gay activism. It's sad, because Vaughn has contributed so much to a network of people in social justice issues," said Gene Corpuz, an officer of Dignity Honolulu, an organization of homosexual Catholics.

"It was a dumb decision," said Dorothy Cornell, a 10-year member of First Christian. "We were here for 100 years and no one noticed. Now when people know us as open and affirming, it's the worst possible time for him to go."...

When a deliberately set fire damaged the first floor meeting hall and classrooms at First Christian Church on Aug. 27, the ACLU declared the blaze a possible hate crime aimed at the gay minister or the congregation. The charge briefly put the church in the national spotlight.

It'd be easy to blame it all on the fundies, whose numbers are growing here faster than median home prices -- but then, Homophobe-in-Chief Mike Gabbard is not a fundie but a Hare Krishna! "You might be in Hawai'i if... the Hare Krishnas are part of the religious right!"