Alleged Hate Crime In Puerto Rico Resonates In West Village
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New Yorkers gathered in the West Village Sunday night to pay tribute to a gay Puerto Rican teen brutally murdered there last week. NY1’s Natasha Ghoneim filed the following report.The Manhattan vigil was a call to action, a vow to ensure Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado gets justice and a promise to continue to squelch homophobia.
"This was a hate crime!" said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
"This has to stop. It's been going on for too long,” said a vigil attendee.
The people who gathered for this vigil at Pier 45 Sunday night had never met Mercado. But the 19-year-old's gruesome killing is galvanizing the gay, lesbian and transgender community. The gay man was dressed as a woman when he hitched a ride with a man in Puerto Rico on November 13th. Mercado was later found decapitated and dismembered with his remains burned.
Police say the driver later confessed and said he was enraged after discovering Mercado was a man.
"A lot of us who grew up, Latinos who grew up with this machismo ingrained in us, need to object and examine what's underneath,” said Jarrett Barrios, president of Gay and Lesbians Alliance Against Defamation.
Activists are lambasting the Puerto Rican government for failing to condemn the crime, the district attorney for not classifying it as a hate crime, and the media for its coverage. For many, this case is reminiscent of the Matthew Shepard murder. The young gay man was targeted and killed in Wyoming in 1998.
"We hope, like Matthew Shepard, he will be a candle if you will, in the dark for those who feel alone and isolated,” said Oscar Lopez of the Latino Commission on AIDS.
The expanded hate crime law President Barack Obama signed into law in October was named after Shepard. It makes it a federal crime to harm someone based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Mercado's case could be the first time federal authorities step in and prosecute as a hate crime.
Bino Alves says Mercado's case may seem distant, but homophobia is lurking in many neighborhoods in the city. The gay man is still recuperating after being jumped by four men in Brooklyn in September.
“It gives me chills every time something like this happens,” Alves said. “Ut makes me think thank God I'm alive, but it could have happened to me.”
Activists are encouraging people to e-mail the governor of Puerto Rico and ask him to condemn Mercado's murder and ensure it is treated as a hate crime.