Vigil calls NYPD to task on anti-gay and race-based discrimination
If the hate-filled murder of Rodney Velasquez shocked the Bronx LGBT community in 2002, the wound has since been deepened by police inaction on the case, recounts Rodney’s mother, Haydee Galloza. After the initial suspect was cleared, police essentially closed the file. Now, she says, they don’t even respond to her queries.
Speaking to a small crowd gathered for an anniversary vigil near the Bronx apartment where Galloza found her son mutilated amid anti-gay scrawlings, she described police response as well as local news coverage of the murder: “They said ‘oh, a gay was stabbed, a gay was killed.’ He wasn’t ‘a gay’, he was a beautiful human being, he was my son. All I dream about is getting to the bottom of this.”
The murder, which took place August 4th, 2002, was marked by signs of hate: dozens of wounds, and graffiti, possibly intended to mislead police, reading “Bloods hate fags.” But police, who did initially investigate gang involvement in the crime, didn’t look much further before abandoning the case.
Although Community Affairs officers appeared at the Rodney Velasquez vigil, a phone call to the 42nd Precinct turned up a desk sergeant who did not recognize even the name of the case, and could discover only that the detective who had worked on the case is retired.
When asked what precinct detectives had done to pursue the case, an NYPD spokesperson answered: “The case isn’t considered closed – but if you only have a few leads, and they don’t turn up anything, you have to wait for someone to walk into the station and tell you something new.” Although LGBT community groups cite the NYPD’s record of homophobia as a factor in the failure to resolve such cases, the 42nd Precinct appears to be equally inactive in most of its murder investigations: precinct detectives made only 21 arrests on 29 murders in 2002 and 2003, CompStat data shows.
LGBT community members see police inaction as a problem that includes, but goes beyond, homophobia: “Most of the gay murders we’ve seen in the last few years are now cold cases,” says Basil Lucas, who coordinates hate crimes and police relations at AVP. “The presumption is that a gay victim must have been soliciting sex. And transgender people get even less support from police. The whispering begins immediately.”
“The Hate Crimes Task Force is always on the ball for us, but the lower rung beat cops, the report-takers, frequently minimize or ignore us.” Beat officers’ refusal process reports from gay individuals often means that police fail to prevent violence, said Lucas.
“If police weren’t so tied up chasing young people of color to prosecute them under the Rockfeller drug laws, they might have time to seriously investigate crimes against young people of color,” said Tony O’Rourke-Quintana, who is newly installed as the Executive Director of the Bronx Lesbian & Gay Health Resource Consortium. “If police care who committed this vicious murder, they can’t wait for clues to fall into their lap. They have to go out and get them.”
City officials report that violent crimes are decreasing, but anti-gay violence has risen 53% in the past year, according to the NYC Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence project. In the same period, LGBT groups have become increasingly visible in neighborhoods from Brooklyn to the Bronx; particularly groups organizing LGBT people of color and transgender communities.
Increases in homophobic violence are often linked to advances in LGBT visibility, as well as events that increase gender-based violence – for example, mass mobilization for war. But Bronx activists are careful to point out that solutions must come from beyond the LGBT community.
“We’re right to be out,” said Charles Rice of BAAD, the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, speaking at the Rodney Velasquez vigil. “We are not the problem. The problem comes when people feel they can express hate and violence against us.”
“We need to make sure we don’t isolate ourselves from each other in our fight against racism and other inequalities”, added Peter Serrano of South Bronx Concered Citizens. Serrano urged those who feel violent urges to attend anger management classes at SBCC.
The connection between “outness” and homophobic violence. Out people of color from working-class and immigrant families, particularly young people, often walk a line between pride and caution in the Bronx.
“The murder is not going to stop me being who I am,” said David, 16, of the Bronx Lesbian & Gay Health Resource Consortium’s youth group. “But it makes me more careful.”
Meanwhile, community groups call on anyone with information to report it wherever they feel safest – to the NYC Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, the Bronx Consortium or the NYPD at (800) 577-TIPS.
The Rodney Velasquez memorial vigil was attended by 30 Bronx community members, including representatives from the Bronx Lesbian & Gay Health Resouce Consortium, Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance, the NYC Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, South Bronx Concerned Citizens and Bronx Community Board 1.
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