Loving The Sinner…(continued)
Ten years after Matthew Shepard was beaten to death in Wyoming, and while waiting for the trial of Lawrence King’s murderer…
Beating is probed as hate crime
TRIBUNE – Greeley County authorities are investigating what they call an alleged hate crime that occurred early Sunday morning.
Officers responded to reports of an intruder in a Tribune home. By the time they arrived, the intruder had left, but the teenager inside had been beaten, said Greeley County Sheriff Mark Rine.
Dustin Myers, 16, of Horace, was arrested Sunday. Rine said Myers perceived the teen in the home to be gay. Myers is charged with aggravated burglary, aggravated assault and carrying a concealed explosive.
Other news reports on the crime Here, and Here. Myers apparently broke into the home of the unnamed teenager and beat the crap out of him before the police arrived. He’d brought with him some sort of explosive device, and intended to kill the other teen. In the comments section over at Hutchinson news, people are rushing to the defense of Myers…
SHOCKING : 9/20/2008
Yes i know this is shocking to everyone…yes we do need all the prayers we can get…we do appriciate all them…Rutt is not the kind of kid that would ever do anything like this…he just doesnt have it in is heart to hurt anything…we are all just as shocked as everyone else but it would be nice if people would leave us alone about this and let us handle thingsWE MISS YOU!!
Let it be said there also seems to be genuine worry about hate, but it’s being expressed in vague declarations that dance around the essential homophobic nature of the crime, along with a lot of calls for prayer. Maybe my friend in Kansas can shed some more light on this one.
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:05 pm
WOW!
Either I just havn’t been paying attention, or this just made NO dent in our local media.
But it really doesn’t surprize me coming from little rural towns like Tribune, or Hutchinson, or wherever.
One line from one of the stories that bugs me is:
"The victim’s family tells the sheriff, reports that the boy is homosexual are hurtful to *them*."
Hurtful to THEM? How about hurtful to the KID? Hmmm….so where do kids like meyers get their attitudes and ideas about Gay people? Especially ones strong enough to make them feel just A-Okay about beating the crap out of another kid then trying to blow him up?
Hmmm…fruedian slip of sorts? He wanted to "BLOW" up the other kid?
Well, we know damned good and well that "We always hurt the one we love" and that a huge percentage of people that commit (or express) such strong anti-Gay feelings are in fact deeply closeted, or deeply repressed themselves.
In THAT respect, maybe we can find a little bit of pity and "understanding" of Meyers. But I wonder how MEYERS family would feel….."Hurtful to THEM"?
I wonder what the relationship between these two boy was? Where they "friends"? Did they know each other very well? In a town of 800, even feeding their school children into bigger schools that serve the county, it would be almost impossible for them NOT to know each other some how. Had there been any previous altercations between the two?
Or even an un-requitted (Or possibly briefly consumated?) love/lust between the two?
I know that MY "Not boyfriend at all" friend in jr high and highschool, and I would stage fights with each other on the school yard just to make sure no one suspected….and even to "punish" the other for "making" us Queer somehow.
But for the most part, I don’t really have any more insight into this incident then anyone else has. I’ll have to scan some of the other papers and media around here to see if it was reported and I just missed it.
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
The world is a scary place. Who cares if he is or isnt gay. The main concern is that a seemingly normal boy ina town that everyone knows everyone thought it was ok to break into a home and physically harm that person and try and take his life. Now this normal boy someone said would do no harm to any one – so if that is the case he needs to save his ass and tell what really is going on. Because what he did is unacceptable and punishable by many many years in prison. And if that happens any "Normal -cie " in this boy is GONE forever. Lord help and be wtiht he citizens of Greely County Kansas.
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Someo one said "leave us Alone and let us handle this" Like you are not required to be held to the same laws and outsiders looking in as anyone else in the world. Maybe that is what is wrong in Greeley county is that you expect everyone to back off and let the "rules of te community" handle the problem. You might be surprised that you are NOT doing the young people in your community any favors by protecting them this way.