Gay Hate Crime Murder Of Puerto Rican Teen Sees Police Announce He Deserved It
Posted: 16th Nov 2009 Author: Queeried Topics: News
The body of gay teenager, Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado was discovered on the edge of a road in Cayey, Puerto Rico last Thursday, with the police investigator suggesting that the 19 year old deserved it “because people who lead this type of lifestyle need to be aware that this will happen”.
Dreaming of working in the fashion and beauty sector, Jorge was planning to start college to train for his dream job in January, but was found this last week burnt, decapitated and dismembered only a few miles from Caguas, the town in which he was living. A much loved member of the gay community in the area, Mercado’s death has obviously been met with great sadness by the community, something which is tinged with further disappointment because of the fact that it is highly unlikely his death will be treated as a homophobic attack seeing as Puerto Rico has never in it’s history classified a murder as any form of hate crime.
Luis Rivera, one of Jorge’s best friends said that they first began to worry about Jorge when he didn’t turn up to the Krash de Santurce club as he and his friends have planned and they couldn’t get hold of him on his cell phone, with the sad realisation of what had happened occuring when he read about the discovery of a body with features matching Jorge in the paper.
Pedro Julio Serrano, a leading human rights activist has spoken of his sadness at the death of Jorge, with his family not yet feeling ready to speak out.
Photo by Suministrada.
UPDATE : A suspect has seen been arrested and confessed to the murder – you can read the arrest here and his confession here.
How can that police officer talk like that? People, gay or straight, should not have to worry about these kinds of things. When are people going to get over the differences? Why do we let one characteristic define and entire person? Mr. Police Officer, how would you like it if somebody decided to kill your son or daughter because they were gay? Or what if the tables were turned and straight people were the odd ones out? How would you feel being bashed for the little things like your sexual preference? We are all in the same boat. We are all different and what makes us different most of the time make us better. Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado was not hurting anyone by being gay. Why do people insist on hurting those around them because of one quality that would never had made a difference if they hadn’t known about it? The guy that killed him deserves to be tortured and killed the same way that Jorge was. He needs to feel the pain and the fear that Jorge went through in his last moments.
Totally with you Kate, you expect law enforcement agencies and those working within them to operate in an unbiased way whatever their personal views. Personally I think a lot of gay hate crime is connected to fear of the unknown, people are ignorant and construct their beliefs of what a homosexual lifestyle is around outdated and untrue stereotypes which leads them to see the LGBT community in a way that is far for realistic. I’m sure that there are many who would like to see his killer suffer the same but personally I think that we as a community can do so much more by, like his mother said, focusing not on hate, but love and educating people that the homosexual lifestyle is actually not that different from their own.