Hello All,
I know this is not a BBM news coverage story,but it is related in a roundabout way.Two young men were attacked with a tire iron.Can't tell you how sad this makes me feel,especially the connection to the film.It makes me feel nothing has changed?
Hugs
Jennis.x
Story 1
(Philipsburg, St. Maarten) Two CBS News employees were attacked and severely beaten by a group of men on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten where they were vacationing in what is described at as homophobic attack.
WFOR television in Miami reports that Richard Jefferson, a senior producer for the CBS Nightly News and his friend Ryan Smith a producer-researcher fort 48 Hours were attacked as they left a popular bar after an altercation with the men earlier in the night inside the club.
The attackers allegedly hurled homophobic insults at the two and they were beaten with a tire iron. Both men were rushed to a local hospital. Jefferson sustained severe cuts on the back of his head and his lower back. Smith suffered a fractured skull and possible neurological damage.
He was transferred by air ambulance to Memorial Hospital in Miami on Friday. Jefferson is also in Miami receiving medical care.
A doctor said that Smith is unable to speak properly and may have difficulty walking.
Jefferson was critical of the way police handled the situation.
He said that employees of the club called police but no one responded. Jefferson said he called police from the hospital but at no time did any officer come to the hospital to take a report.
Police in Philipsburg did not return calls from 365Gay.com seeking information.
Jefferson said he has been visiting St. Maarten for 15 years but it isn't “a friendly island anymore.”
Earlier in the week a gay man was chased through the campus of the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica by rioting students. (story)
Students on Friday apologized for the attack and the university said it would discipline the ringleaders.
The rioting began when a student claimed the man had propositioned him in a college washroom.
Meanwhile, police on Friday said the victim of the attack was not a student as they had earlier stated. The man is being investigated under Jamaica's sodomy law and will be charged with trespassing.
©365Gay.com 2006
Link to original source.
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/04/040706bashing.htmStory 2
The Daily Herald.com
Holiday, Chief Prosecutor react
to alleged ‘gay bashing’ incident
St. Maarten--Windward Islands Chief Prosecutor Taco Stein and St. Maarten Police Chief Commissioner Derrick Holiday have been chosen to be the primary spokespersons assigned to give any details available regarding what is now internationally being called a “gay bashing” incident in which a CBS senior producer and another male victim were beaten near Sunset Beach Bar, Maho on Thursday, April 6, around 3:00am.
The two top ranking officials held a press conference at Holiday’s office in a bid to dispel allegations that nothing has been done by police since the attack on the two American nationals.
Holiday said it had been decided in a meeting held Monday morning with Lt. Governor Franklyn Richards and the St. Maarten Island Government that he and Stein would be the spokespersons to address the media on this particular matter.
Responding to a question about laws on hate crimes, Stein said there were indeed laws in the Netherlands Antilles that allowed for the prosecution of persons guilty of committing hate crimes.
He said he had contacted one of the victims, CBS senior producer Richard Jefferson, to assure him that the matter was being followed up. He said Jefferson had called during that conversation for justice to be served, but had said it was not necessarily for him, but for the people of St. Maarten, an island he had been visiting for more than 15 years.
Stein reported Jefferson as saying he was uncertain about who the attackers were because when his friend Ryan Smith, a star researcher for the CBS show 48 Hours, was being attacked he had been some distance away. Smith is currently hospitalised with Jefferson at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida.
Jefferson reportedly told Stein via telephone that he had arrived at the scene only to be struck with the same tire iron the suspects had used to beat Smith, who is said to be at risk of never being able to speak properly again.
Although both Holiday and Stein fielded questions from the local print and electronic media, neither gave details of the investigation except to say that it was still in its early stage. Stein said a crime such as this, which caused grievous bodily harm to a person, carried a jail term of about 12 years.
While the victims had reported their dissatisfaction at the seeming lack of interest in the case by the St. Maarten Police, who did not arrive at the scene on Thursday until the two men were at the St. Maarten Medical Center, Holiday said police had reacted and two officers had been sent to the scene.
He said admittedly detectives had a busy day on Thursday, but the matter was being followed up to the extent that “even as we speak, people are being questioned about what they saw.”
Stein said he had also been in contact with the United States Consulate in Curaçao and with the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, and they were pleased with the progress being made in the investigation.
He said that if the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) decided to investigate it would need to send a special communiqué to his office, which had not been done. He did not foresee that happening, as US authorities were satisfied that the investigation was progressing.
Smith and Jefferson were reportedly beaten by four male suspects who were accompanied by two females, after an exchange of words inside Bamboo Bernie’s where they were allegedly harassed about their sexual preference.
According to management of Bamboo Bernie’s, the suspects were thrown out of the establishment after a bout of “name-calling” became “ugly.” The victims left the club about 30 minutes later and Smith was the first to be attacked when a car drove towards him. He was reportedly hit by the vehicle. The driver stopped and the four suspects got out and started beating Smith.
Link to original source
http://thedailyherald.com/news/daily/i278/bash278.htmlStory 3
Alledged Hate Crime In Paradise
April 11, 2006 — They were six friends on vacation in the Caribbean,
escaping the last bluster of the New York winter on the easygoing
island of St. Maarten.
One of them, Ryan Smith, 25, and 6 feet 7 inches tall, had the resume
of a rising star: a graduate of Columbia University, a former White
House intern, a former intern at the David Letterman Show, and now a
researcher at CBS News.
His mother, Patricia Smith, was at home in Sandusky, Ohio, last
Thursday morning. She had just sent an e-mail to her son asking him
how his vacation was going. She remembers that just after she clicked
the SEND button on her computer the phone rang. It was one of her
son's friends calling from St. Maarten.
"He told me that Ryan was badly hurt, had a head injury," she said.
"And they were attacked, and Ryan took the worst of it."
"You can't believe it," she said, eyes filling with tears. "You can't
believe it's your son."
'What the Hell Is Going On?'
Ryan Smith was airlifted to Miami where he is now in the intensive
care unit of Jackson Memorial Hospital with a crushed skull and brain
injuries in a suspected gay-bashing attack.
Dick Jefferson, a friend and colleague who was vacationing with Smith,
also suffered injuries and was airlifted from St. Maarten to Miami. He
was released from the hospital, but his head bears a huge scar, dozens
of stitches, and a titanium plate implanted by neurosurgeons.
Jefferson, a senior broadcast producer for the "CBS Evening News,"
said the attack happened late at night, as he and others in a group
were meeting at their car to head home to their rented villa. Smith
and his boyfriend, Justin Swensen, had been at Bamboo Bernie's, a
popular local bar while other friends had stopped at a casino nearby.
As Jefferson approached the parking lot at Bamboo Bernie's, he saw a
scuffle. He realized that Smith was being attacked by several men and
was about to be hit by a speeding car.
"What the hell is going on?" Jefferson remembered asking.
Moments later, Jefferson said, he was knocked unconscious with a
four-pronged tire wrench.Swensen said that he had witnessed the entire
incident and that the attack was a hate crime. He and Smith had been
sitting together in Bamboo Bernie's, a bar where they had been
previously welcomed. Smith was talking to Swensen about a recent
family tragedy. They were hugging.
"Some of the local guys in the bar were sitting across from us. They
started making fun of us," Swensen said. "We really we did nothing to
provoke them."
The couple's hecklers were thrown out of the bar, but they allegedly
waited in the parking lot for Smith and Swensen. Smith walked ahead of
Swensen, who said he saw him get hit with rocks, spray cans, and then
a tire iron. Meanwhile, a car headed straight at Swensen, who jumped
onto the hood to avoid being run over.
Parents Learn About Son's Secret the Hard Way
Swensen and the others eventually got Smith and Jefferson to the
hospital. He wasn't able to call Smith's parents until the morning.
It was a difficult conversation, he said. Smith's parents did not know
who he was and yet he had to tell them their son had been gravely
injured. When he was pressed to explain why the assault happened,
Swensen said, he finally explained that it was a hate crime because he
and Smith are gay.
"Ryan hadn't told them that before," he said. Patricia Smith is not
ready to talk about those issues. She is unwavering in her love for
her son and her sense of injustice.
"It doesn't matter if I know, if my husband knows," she said. "What's
important is that these hate crimes are unjustifiable for any reason."
Long Road to Recovery Ahead
The part of the island of St. Maarten where the assault took place is
Dutch territory in the Caribbean, just like the island of Aruba. It
was almost a year ago that Natalee Holloway disappeared in Aruba.
Since then, her parents have had an exasperating odyssey through the
island's Dutch legal system. Smith's family and friends are bracing
for a similar journey.
St. Maarten police, Jefferson said, initially did not want to
investigate the incident."The police response has been no police
response," he said. "The best way I can explain the police response is
when the detective finally came after three phone calls to get my
report, he asked, 'Why should I even bother talking to you? Are you
guys even going to file charges? You are just going back to America.'
Police were totally indifferent to the situation, the crime, or to the
seriousness of it."
"Two days after the incident I had not heard from the police,"
Jefferson said. "Yet I heard from the Department of Tourism, which
told me they were taking over the investigation. I couldn't help but
laugh. It is ludicrous that the tourism department is trying to
prosecute and become a police department. They are not the experts in
police work; they are the experts at getting tourists to the island.
It's like saying you got hurt in Miami and the Miami Chamber of
Commerce is investigating your beating."
However, St. Maarten police insist a full investigation is underway.
On Monday, they published a newspaper advertisement asking witnesses
to the attack to come forward.
"We do not take the ill treatment of any person, whether resident or
visitor, lightly, and we are pursuing this matter to find the
suspects," said police spokesman Johan Leonard.
Swensen and Jefferson said that they could help identify some of the
assailants and that there were several witnesses.
Smith, however, is still in intensive care and cannot talk coherently.
His mother said doctors did not yet know her son's prognosis, but she
had been warned he faced a very long recovery.
Unknown source?
