CANBERRA, Atralia (AP) — A ernment quiry began hearg evince on Wednday of unsolved aths rultg om gay hate crim over four s Atralia’s most populo state where police were notorly different to such vlence.
Contents:
- MATTHEW SHEPARD, VICTIM OF ANTI-GAY HATE CRIME, DI
- NSW QUIRY TO VTIGATE 40 YEARS OF UNSOLVED SYDNEY GAY HATE ATHS
- ‘I WAS TOTALLY GRIPPED WH FEAR’: QUIRY EXAM 40 YEARS OF GAY HATE CRIM
- THE ATH OF DR DUNN: THE GAY HATE CRIME THAT CHANGED ATRALIA
- ANTI-GAY HATE CRIM FELL SLIGHTLY 2020, WHILE ANTI-TRANS CRIM ROSE, FBI SAYS
- THE TTH BEHD AMERI’S MOST FAMO GAY-HATE MURR
- ATRALIAN QUIRY PROB 40 YEARS OF GAY HATE KILLGS
MATTHEW SHEPARD, VICTIM OF ANTI-GAY HATE CRIME, DI
A Supreme Court judge has been selected to vtigate the e and manner of 88 spected gay hate aths Sydney to give fai answers and close a dark chapter the state's history. * gay hate crime deaths *
After meetg Shepard a Laramie, Wyomg, gay bar, The Firi Lounge, Rsell Henrson and Aaron McKney lured him to the parkg lot, where he was beaten and two attackers then took Shepard, 21 years old and weighg jt over 100 pounds, to a remote spot outsi of town and tied his naked body to a woon fence, tortured him, and left him the eezg ld.
NSW Premier Domic Perrottet has announced the most extensive quiry to dozens of Sydney gay hate aths that have gone unsolved some s for more than half a pots:Gay hate crim were rampant durg the 1980s and 1990s SydneyA parliamentary mtee prevly found police failed to vtigate many spected gay hate murrsThe upg quiry will have signifint powers, cludg the summong of wnsThe special missn of quiry will be led by Supreme Court judge John Sackar and will vtigate 88 unsolved murrs mted agast LGBTQI people om 1970 to is thought the quiry may lead to new evince beg unvered or brg prevly unreported crim to light. A spate of btal bashgs and murrs Sydney brought terror to the LGBTQI muny for s and police were often not terted vtigatg the gangs targeted gay men parks and toilets, and victims were often found at the bottom of such se was the murr of Amerin mathematician Stt Johnson, who was found ad at the base of a cliff near Manly's North Head. (Supplied: NSW Police)A judicial quiry was one of the key remendatns of a 2018 parliamentary mtee to gay and transgenr hate crim, which found NSW Police were different to such crim and failed to properly vtigate them at the time.
NSW QUIRY TO VTIGATE 40 YEARS OF UNSOLVED SYDNEY GAY HATE ATHS
The NSW Police Force has admted s officers may have ma ser mistak while re-examg potential gay-hate murrs among a list of 30 unsolved aths. An SBS vtigatn has unvered a failure by police to check even basic tails for some of the men, rultg an erroneo asssment beg provid to NSW State Coroner Michael Barn. For the first time, each of the 30 s is explaed tail this SBS teractive. But some of the s would have amounted to a few l if SBS had relied on what police managed to unver. * gay hate crime deaths *
NSW Police tablished Strike Force Parrabell 2013 to vtigate the murrs of 86 gay men and found a third of the killgs were a rult of gay Strike Force found the AIDS crisis fuelled homophobia but nclud was "almost impossible" to intify a "gay-hate bias" om police vtigators workg on the s. Part of Pri Month is acknowledgg that while Amerin society has e a long way towards acceptg lbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenr, and queer folks, there’s still a long way to go and a lot of work for all of to do.
‘I WAS TOTALLY GRIPPED WH FEAR’: QUIRY EXAM 40 YEARS OF GAY HATE CRIM
Now 88, Peterk told the special missn of quiry to LGBTQ+ hate crim Sydney this week that he’d been targeted for beg gay as far back as the 1950s, when he was arrted by unrver police at a known meet-up spot. His acunt gave a glimpse to the experienc of a ral gay man whose life spans the quiry’s reference dat, 1970 to jt a few days of heargs, the broast snapshot ever of ral and regnal LGBTQ+ hate crim has e to light. In the 1950s he moved to Sydney to take up teachg 1956, 28 years before homosexualy was crimalised NSW, he was arrted by a police officer posg as a gay man at a North Sydney ‘beat’, a public toilet or other public place equented by men seekg ntact, often sexual, wh same-sex attracted men.
Parrabell also looked at the ath of 33-year-old Rsell Payne, who was found ad his home at Inverell 1989; and the ath of 36-year-old Graham Paynter, whose body was disvered at the base of a cliff at Tathra on the state’s far-south ast the same ’s ath was tegorised as a spected crime of “bias”, but the Parrabell report stated that evince of gay hate was eher not found the other ral s, or there was sufficient rmatn llected durg ial police quiri to now tegorise any motive for them. The motive of gay-hatred was raised but not tablished durg the subsequent trial, although the Parrabell vtigatn tegorised the 67-year-old’s ath as a spected bias crime.
A 2020 parliamentary quiry report stated that the NSW police had “failed s rponsibili to properly vtigate” gay and transgenr hate current special missn will quire to unsolved Parrabell s, and unsolved aths where the victim was om the LGBTQ+ muny and the cint was prevly vtigated by NSW police.
THE ATH OF DR DUNN: THE GAY HATE CRIME THAT CHANGED ATRALIA
”This is how a wns scribed the fal sends of Dr Gee Dunn’s life, as told to the ABC 2005, 33 years after the 41-year-old Universy of Alai amic drowned the River Torrens and posthumoly set motn the zegeist of gay law reform 10 May 1972 ath of Dr Gee Ian Ogilvie Dunn – spected to be at the hands of Alai’s police vice squad, at a time when homosexualy was outlawed every state Atralia – is an event enshred the narrative of the South Atralian LBTQI Christos Tslkas and his partner Wayne van r Stelt first learned of Dunn’s revered place SA’s legal history back the mid-1980s, when the two young Melbourne universy stunts ma their first road trip together to Alai.
“I remember gog to the Candlelight, which was one of the old queer clubs there, and hearg the story about what happened down at the river – hearg about the gay bashgs and police bashgs, ” he says. “There was still a real sense of beg a ontier town … we were the bourgeois, nice part of Alai, but we were gettg warngs om gay men we were talkg to pubs, sayg jt be really reful. “Dunn died at a gay beat and we wanted that world to be munited the words of the mic … That’s been excg, workg on those two thgs, the sacred and the illic together.
”Legislative ground breakerThe background story documentg Dunn’s life is pellg, as historian Tim Reev n whe upper middle class, Atralian raised and Oxbridge ted history amic lived a secret life, as most gay men were forced to do, growg up the 1950s and 1960s has spent the better part of three s documentg the Dunn se, he served as a nsultant on the Watershed project and will be releasg his book The Death of Doctor Dunn at the Alai Wrer’s ftival on 9 March, where is beg lnched by David ath toll om Atralia’s long-standg crimalisatn of homosexualy – through murr, manslghter and suici – was far om unique the English speakg world, he says, but the rapidy of legislative chang followg Dunn’s ath was a world game police officers were early spected as the culprs who tossed Dunn, a man who spe his tn at Melbourne Grammar – an exclive school which prid self as much on s athletic prows as s scholastic rigour – was unable to an ternal police vtigatn prompted wispread public skepticism, Stland Yard tectiv were lled to vtigate penntly – but the subsequent fdgs tabled a parliamentary quiry found that “there was no real tentn of g anyone’s ath – this was merely a high-spired olic which went wrong.
ANTI-GAY HATE CRIM FELL SLIGHTLY 2020, WHILE ANTI-TRANS CRIM ROSE, FBI SAYS
That seemgly good samaran was Bevan Spencer von Eem, subsequently nvicted of the abductn, sexual torture and murr of 15-year-old schoolboy Richard Kelv, and the spected killer of at least two other gay men whose s have never been solved. ”Dr Gee Dunn’s ath precipated law reform South Atralia, makg the first jurisdictnal terrory the English-speakg world to crimalise gay sex between nsentg adults. “All gay and lbian and transgenr people are uniquely aware of the fact that we live our liv subject to the law, and that the laws have a profound fluence on the way you n behave publicly – what the lims of your love are and how they are fed legally.
THE TTH BEHD AMERI’S MOST FAMO GAY-HATE MURR
They pistol whipped him wh a gun then tied him to a fence eezg ndns and set fire to him before leavg him to attack beme a e célèbre: precipated a natnal backlash agast hyper-macho culture and tac tolerance of homophobia.
ATRALIAN QUIRY PROB 40 YEARS OF GAY HATE KILLGS
But the town also has a number of mobile home parks at the edg, some more ndown than the eveng of 6 October 1998, Matthew went to the Firi bar, a lol hangout that was purportedly gay-iendly. So why has he put such time and effort to attemptg to prove that Matthew’s murr was not a hate crime, pecially as has seen him acced of beg an ally to the rightwg Christian fundamentalists who ny the realy of homophobia? ”Wypijewski thks the reason some sectns of the gay muny are so angry about the Jimenez book is obv: “Jimenez has taken away their angel, and there is the reflexive sense that as a muny s sufferg was beg at last regnised.
Photograph: Evan Agosti/Getty Imag Photograph: Evan Agosti/Getty ImagOn 16 September the Casper Star Tribune, the lol paper Matthew’s home town, published an edorial claimg that an award Jimenez had recently received for his book “serv rejectn”, sayg: “From the begng there have been those who want to ignore the sadistic homophobic motiv of Shepard’s attackers and stead sist the matter was a dg al gone bad.
But the mystery remas – not so much why Matthew died, but why the gay muny, after almost five s of mpaigng for equal rights, reli so fundamentally on the image of the perfect martyr to reprent the e.