Post by erzulie on Feb 24, 2007 15:34:58 GMT -5
This article really upsets me:
Victim, 72, of Detroit hate beating dies
Andrew Anthos, whose dream was to light up the Michigan state capitol dome
in red, white, and blue, died Friday of injuries sustained in a February
13 hate beating.
Though Anthos, 72, was visiting with friends as recently as Wednesday, his
condition declined rapidly in the past two days and he was administered
the last rites late Thursday in Detroit Receiving Hospital.
The attack, which left Anthos paralyzed from the neck down and virtually
without speech, shocked the gay community, which reached out to his family
with love and support�as well as anger and a resolve for justice.
"So many people want to pay their respects," Anthos's niece, Athena
Fedenis, told Gay.com on Friday, adding that she considers the gay people
who've offered to help "like family. He will not have died in vain."
Anthos, known to loved ones as "Buddy," was gay and biracial, being of
half-black, half-white ancestry, Fedenis said. He had been riding the bus
that evening from the public library back to his Detroit apartment when
another passenger annoyed with his singing approached him and asked if he
was gay.
Anthos left the bus and helped a wheelchair-bound fellow passenger through
the snow, only to be followed by the assailant, who hit him in the back of
the head with a metal pipe and fled.
Washington, D.C.�based gay rights group Human Rights Campaign has offered
to pay for Anthos's funeral, Fedenis said.
The wheelchair-using friend was able to provide some information in what
now becomes a homicide investigation, Detroit police detective Sgt. Ryan
Lovier said. But police still seek potential witnesses aboard the bus,
which would have arrived at the stop near Detroit's Windsor Towers
apartments roughly between 6 and 6:30 p.m.
The assailant is described as a light-skinned black man, no more than 23
years old, about 5 foot 7 and 150 pounds, wearing a dark coat and pants,
Lovier said. (Barbara Wilcox, The Advocate)
I've never understood how you can be so hateful as to kill someone just because they're different from you, but really. A 72-year-old man. One who is cheerful enough to sign on a bus, and kind enough to help a person using a wheelchair get through the snow (no small feat considering recent weather, it's hard enough to get around on foot). How could anyone think that nice old man deserved to die because he was gay?
Victim, 72, of Detroit hate beating dies
Andrew Anthos, whose dream was to light up the Michigan state capitol dome
in red, white, and blue, died Friday of injuries sustained in a February
13 hate beating.
Though Anthos, 72, was visiting with friends as recently as Wednesday, his
condition declined rapidly in the past two days and he was administered
the last rites late Thursday in Detroit Receiving Hospital.
The attack, which left Anthos paralyzed from the neck down and virtually
without speech, shocked the gay community, which reached out to his family
with love and support�as well as anger and a resolve for justice.
"So many people want to pay their respects," Anthos's niece, Athena
Fedenis, told Gay.com on Friday, adding that she considers the gay people
who've offered to help "like family. He will not have died in vain."
Anthos, known to loved ones as "Buddy," was gay and biracial, being of
half-black, half-white ancestry, Fedenis said. He had been riding the bus
that evening from the public library back to his Detroit apartment when
another passenger annoyed with his singing approached him and asked if he
was gay.
Anthos left the bus and helped a wheelchair-bound fellow passenger through
the snow, only to be followed by the assailant, who hit him in the back of
the head with a metal pipe and fled.
Washington, D.C.�based gay rights group Human Rights Campaign has offered
to pay for Anthos's funeral, Fedenis said.
The wheelchair-using friend was able to provide some information in what
now becomes a homicide investigation, Detroit police detective Sgt. Ryan
Lovier said. But police still seek potential witnesses aboard the bus,
which would have arrived at the stop near Detroit's Windsor Towers
apartments roughly between 6 and 6:30 p.m.
The assailant is described as a light-skinned black man, no more than 23
years old, about 5 foot 7 and 150 pounds, wearing a dark coat and pants,
Lovier said. (Barbara Wilcox, The Advocate)
I've never understood how you can be so hateful as to kill someone just because they're different from you, but really. A 72-year-old man. One who is cheerful enough to sign on a bus, and kind enough to help a person using a wheelchair get through the snow (no small feat considering recent weather, it's hard enough to get around on foot). How could anyone think that nice old man deserved to die because he was gay?