Here are my Letters to the Editor, 20 October 1998 -------to the Daily News---------------------------- Cops, Mayor Should Take a Lesson from the Comics There's a reason why I only read the comics the few times a year I buy the News--the demonization of gays and lesbians in your pages. Reading your cover story concerning Monday's march was another example. Referring to mourning marchers as "cohorts" and depicting the march as some sort of gay plot to hoodwink the authorities. What sort of Mickey Mouse police force do we have? If 5000 average citizens all knew about this march for days, how could the NYPD have no idea what was to come, while they claim it was spontaneous? This is just hogwash. Considering the visibility of the Gay Officers Action League (GOAL) and a long history of loud protests from us, how could any sane New Yorker be expected to believe that the police had no idea what to expect, with the investigative resources they have at their disposal? I am an eyewitness to the NYPD, very early in the march, arresting the very organizers--at Fifth Avenue and 56th Street, the start of the march--who were asking us to keep moving or we would be arrested. Arrests were indiscriminate, and are following the disturbing trend of violence the police have pursued in previous marches this year--notably the Million Youth March and the construction workers' protest in June. The hideous murder of Matthew Shepard is a national tragedy that has captured America's sympathy. It was even on the cover of Time magazine. There were 100 vigils elsewhere in this country without incident. Why couldn't New York be one of them? Considering the whopping increase in bias attacks this year over last, and a perceived lack of action from the NYPD to help combat the problem, do the police really expect a warm welcome from a community it routinely belittles and ignores? As a two-time victim of police indifference and ridicule, I am quite wary of trusting the boys in blue and the Mayor. Perhaps they should start reading Prince Valiant also, and get some tips on manners, common sense, and good governance.. ------- to Newsday [which is actually possibly being published soon. They called.] As loyal reader for 20 years and a former Great Neck resident now living in Manhattan, I have to commend Newsday for its continued commitment to covering gay issues in the metropolitan area and nationwide. Reading your coverage of last night's protest march through midtown, and having marched for the first hour, I can attest that at least 2000 were waiting patiently in front of the Plaza Hotel, waiting for the step-off. When Mayor Giuliani, from a distance in New Hampshire, tells the press the march started with 200 people and "somehow grew," he is distorting the truth. You can ask any of the hotel's doormen or guests. For the Mayor to intimate we caught the NYPD off guard shows a base insensitivity to the trampled psyche of the gay community. His patent indifference trickles down to the police, resulting in the stormtrooper tactics we all witnessed last night, and at the Million Youth March, and just about anywhere freedom of speech is upheld en masse. Hate crimes in New York City are up 81%. Names like Julio Rivera and Peter Garcia preceded Matthew Shepard here at home, and people are fed up. If Giuliani's administration cannot anticipate these events, and respond effectively and without violence, then it really has no business running a city as complicated and diverse as New York. But what else can we expect from a man who led a police riot at City Hall against former Mayor David Dinkins? ------------------------------------------------ to the New York Times Doing Overtime in New York City The peaceful vigil and political funeral attended by thousands of citizens on Oct. 19, started peacefully and ended miserably, the police using used clubs and horses to intimidate and drive off peaceful citizens. The police also indiscriminately arrested people for simply not moving fast enough. I saw it. I was there. The police also emptied a bus of its passengers so they could make these bereaved, outraged people sit on it, detained, for hours. At Madison Square Park, approximately 1000 police officers milled around, reminiscent of a fascist Italy or a science fiction movie in riot gear and sneering glances. Meanwhile, on the train home, not a single officer of the peace was on the scene as a crazed individual screamed, over and over again, "Faggot die, faggot lie." I finally told him to knock it off, and was subsequently threatened. On the eve of my 35th birthday I was face-to-face with someone now directing "faggot" to me, and possibly his fist. Moments earlier, I listened to the cops at the top of the stairs carrying on about all the overtime they would be getting, chuckling away. I told them they hardly deserved it. On the news, later, a police spokesperson said the NYPD was totally taken off guard. "We were only expecting 200 people." In New York City, legendary for having one of the highest concentrations of gay people in the country? He also cited that we were "endangering the safety of motorists"--a statement too absurd to deconstruct. Does the mayor and the NYPD expect the public to believe this nonsense AND pay for it too with our taxes? We do not. Forty one states have adopted hate crime laws; New York is not one of them. And while the police make overtime, the rest of us are paying overtime in uneasy sleepless nights. --------------- to the New York Post History of Actions Speaks Louder than Words I was pleasantly surprised, after my initial negative reaction to the shrill "Gay Riot" headlines on the front page (October 20, 1998), to the fair and balanced coverage of Monday's protest march. You also point out the shocking rise in hate crimes against lesbians and gays. However, gay New Yorkers have spent years dealing with a homophobic police force that has used entrapment and humiliation to harass us. In his tenure, the Mayor has harassed us in a variety of ways: invoking ancient cabaret laws from the 1920s to shut down gay bars, refusing permits for rallies in the past, and showing an indifference to us his predecessors did not. It is easy for the Mayor, on the following day, to say what he might have done about a permit if asked. But his track record gives clear indications of his lack of commitment to a substantial portion of the New York population. I would like to think that Rudy has been around New York long enough to anticipate the outrage of the gay community, and to expect a traditional Big Apple turnout. Considering the rise in bias attacks--"nearly double the number reported in the same period last year, police said"--what is the NYPD going to do to combat this senseless escalating violence. Or do we have to "just ask" the Mayor to do that as well? ---------------End-------------------------------------------------------