Eric Avila, one of the men subject to a recent hate-crime attack, addresses the crowd, while Mayor Bob Foster and Councilmembers Robert Garcia, Suja Lowenthal, and Gary DeLong look on.
Editor’s Note: This story contains mature language. Please be advised.
10:00am | Mayor Bob Foster, Councilmembers Robert Garcia and Suja Lowenthal, and recently elected Congressmember Janice Hahn were among those who spoke Thursday at a Unity Gathering organized by Garcia and the Gay and Lesbian Center of Long Beach in response to three attacks being investigated as hate crimes against gay men that have occurred during the last two weeks.
“We’re here to make it very clear that these acts are not tolerated in Long Beach,” Foster told the crowd of roughly 400 people assembled in Bixby Park.
While several attendees were costumed or carried signs, the gathering did not have quite the celebratory nature that characterized various anti-Proposition 8 rallies held at Bixby Park and elsewhere over the last two years.
“Whether these acts are legally defined as hate crimes, they are crimes, and they are assaults against all of us,” Lowenthal said. “When one person is attacked, all of us should be offended.”
Lowenthal went on to exhort individuals to take a stand not only against physical attacks, but also against slurs.
Garcia praised Mayor Foster for being with the gay community “on every single issue” and rallied the crowd with a call-and-response rejection of hateful acts such as those perpetrated recently, before introducing Eric Avila, a member of a group of gay men attacked on July 24.
“We should not feel terrorized in our community,” Avila said. “It’s our community, and we should take charge of it.”
Avila also spoke of the incident, which he later described for me in greater detail. “We had left The Falcon [i.e., a bar on the corner of Falcon Ave. and Broadway] and were going to get some tacos,” he said. “I was hungry, I wanted my tacos, so I was ahead of the bunch.”
Avila came across a man later identified by police as Jorge Ibarrias, who has since been charged with one felony count of battery with a hate-crime enhancement.
According to Avila, Ibarrias said to a female companion, “Hey, do you wanna hook up with that guy [viz., Avila]? Well, you can’t — he’s a fucking faggot!” Stunned, Avila says he stopped in his tracks, but by this time Avila’s friends had caught Ibarrias’s attention, and “the guy’s body language [indicated] he was getting aggressive.”
Avila recounts that Ibarrias asked Avila’s friends if they were gay, and that when Martin Sanchez replied in the affirmative, Ibarrias knocked Sanchez unconscious with a punch that dislodged several of Sanchez’s teeth. As “a knee-jerk reaction,” Avila pursued Ibarrias, at the same time telephoning police with an account of the attack and a description of Sanchez’s assailant. “Fortunately, by the time we cornered him at an apartment complex on 3rd Street, the police arrived and took charge of the situation,” Avila said.
Avila also discussed two upcoming events to raise money to help pay for Sanchez’s medical bills. The first takes place today (Aug. 5) from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Pine Ave. restaurant Alegria Cocina Latina, which will be serving free appetizers and donating all bar proceeds for Sanchez’s medical bills. Then on August 14 the Hotel Maya and the LGB2Network is hosting a fundraiser in the form of a pool party from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. 100% of the raffle proceeds will be donated to support Sanchez’s medical bills. Contact Hotel Avia for details. More information is available at www.lgb2network.com or you can call Steve Sheldon directly at 562-400-8421.
Janice Hahn, who won a runoff election last month to take the California’s 36th District congressional seat, was one of the rally’s final speakers. She expressed her dismay that “in the second decade of our 21st century, rallies like this are still necessary,” and said of the recent attacks, “I believe that these kinds of hate crimes are acts of domestic terrorism.”
The gathering had been scheduled to take place in Hot Java, which is catty-corner to the park, but as it became apparent the coffeehouse would be unable to accommodate the hundreds of persons arriving for the rally, an impromptu change of venue was effected.
Postscript:
As the rally concluded and the crowd dispersed, it was brought to my attention that recently there has been a spate of anti-gay activity — ranging from verbal confrontations to property defacement — in the Willmore District, including an confrontation August 3 within three hours and two blocks of the egging of a house flying a gay pride flag. Look for that story Monday on Long Beach Post.