Can gay hate crimes really be on the rise?
January 12, 2010 • Ramon Lopez
Filed under Opinion, World News
On Wednesday, November 11th, 2009, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, police found the body of a 19-year-old man. Police now are saying that this murder was a hate crime. On Friday the 13th, the body of the 19-year-old college student was identified as Jorge Steven Mercado in the town of Cayey. Mercado was a volunteer that supported HIV prevention and gay rights. Now many people are planning a vigil for him in cities such as New York, Chicago, and San Juan. Earlier in the week police caught a suspect, but they haven’t filed any charges against him yet.
The suspects had met Mercado while looking for women on Thursday night in an area that was well known for prostitution. The suspects confessed to stabbing Mercado because he was gay and dressed as a woman. If the suspects are convicted of the hate crime they could face life in prison. In the year 2002, Puerto Rico made a hate crime law that has not yet been applied to cases that involve sexual orientation or gender. A spokesman for the national gay and lesbian task force claimed that they want Puerto Rico to use this law more aggressively. The spokesman also claimed that at least 10 other murders in Puerto Rico should have been investigated as hate crimes because some of the victims were prostitutes that were gay or lesbian transgender prostitutes.
This article is about a 19-year-old man being brutally murdered. What police first thought was just a murder is now being called a hate crime because the victim was dressed like a woman in an area known for prostitution, so now the suspects could face life in prison. What I learned from this story is that even today people have beliefs that are wrong, and as a result they will even kill for the wrong reason. A call to action to help stop this is that we shouldn’t kill or judge people because of what kind of person they like, and that we should just treat them equal like one of us.
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