What do you think about this gay man, who was jailed for acting out in self defense due to a homophobic attack?
For an incident that occurred in 2012, Luke O’Donovan was charged with attempted murder and five counts of felony aggravated assault. O’Donovan had reportedly been attacked by at least five men, who shouted anti-gay slurs at him after seeing him dance with several men at a New Year’s Eve party. O’Donovan self defended himself with a pocket knife.
Why would this man not win his case on the claim of “self defence” after being attacked for being gay? The worst thing of all his attackers are going totally free. This is totally unjustified. They should be in prison, not him.
An updated version of this article is available on Huffington Post
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Many news outlets are not always very careful about recording and describing the “actual facts” of the events that they report.
Nowhere in the account does it describe the specifics of the “attack” against the person who did, after all, plead out to the crime of which he was convicted. I’m not going to jump to defend someone who defends himself with a knife … against a verbal assault.
@CWOTUS Well possibly, I have a little more trust in the Huffington Post in comparison to a lot of other news sources. Some of the external sources that HP supply are more one sided in my view.
For what its worth, this was Donovan’s statement:
”It is regrettable that anyone had to come to harm, but given the choice of whether to lose my life to a hateful attack or fight for the chance to live, I will always choose the ferocious refusal to go quietly into the night. This refusal was not fueled by hate for my attackers, but by my love for life.
It is this passion for life that came in conflict with my attackers, and this same passion that was arrested by the cops and is being punished by the courts. It is this passion that they are trying to chain, to cage, to rehabilitate me away from, but it is this passion that will pull my gaze always forward, through the dark. I can already glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ll be home soon.”
It does say that Donnovan had been repeatedly attacked by five men. But your suspicion is understandable as the specifics of the attack are not mentioned. The only information we have is that homophobic slurs where thrown out, and he was over powered by five individuals. Sometimes the media is not at liberty to discuss court cases with certain details for legal reasons. Maybe this was the case here? Who knows?
@jca wow that certainly puts a different spin on the story. Now that I know that, it seems more like revenge than self defense
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