My name is Charles and I am a student at Salisbury University who is openly gay and I have been closely following the ongoing story of the students who were recently arrested under allegations of hate crimes. I have also been following the student body’s reaction to the news, and as a gay man myself I was concerned. However, given a recent leak on Twitter of the video (mentioned in the police report) from the incident, I found out that like everything in life, there is a complexity to the situation. I have attached the video to this email. Through this new information, some of my fears have been alleviated. I hope that my message can also alleviate the fears of other LGBT students who are looking for support 

It turns out that the rumors are true and the victim was indeed an adult, and the SU students are claiming to have lured him there under the pretense that he was meeting up with a 16-year-old boy. Whether or not they did send messages indicating they were a 16-year-old boy, I do not know. The truth will come out of the ongoing investigation. However, in the video, the students are yelling at the victim as if there is indeed a previously defined context of meeting up with a 16-year-old. 

Please, do not get me wrong; I still believe what they did was heinous. Nobody has the right to strip someone of their civil liberties. By entrapping and beating the victim, they stripped him of his rights and took the law into their own hands. Not only this, but in the video they indicate they did use Grindr (the hook-up site for gay men) to target the victim. This by definition, makes it a hate crime because they sought out the victim based on his sexuality. So yes, I do think all of the allegations are valid and I think the police are 100% taking the correct route of making it a crime involving the victim’s sexual orientation. I also think the victim should still seek help on the whole account of liking underage boys.

However, this eerily sadistic attack was not based solely on the fact the victim was gay. Yes, the fact they used Grindr to target the victim does make it a hate crime. However, they weren’t targeting ordinary gay men. It seems to me that they were under the mindset that what they were doing was cleaning the pedophiles off the streets, not beating up a homosexual. Did they target a homosexual? Absolutely. But the fact he is a homosexual is only the secondary motive in this crime. The primary motive is to go after pedophiles and to make themselves look like heroes. In the end, I think our fears as members of the LGBT community should not come out of the violent nature of this crime. I think instead, they should come out of the possibility that they were of the mindset that they would have no problem finding a pedophile in the gay community. 

Of course, to find out what truly happened we have to wait for the results of the investigation and follow due process. I am not here to call any verdict, just to give insight into how I, as a gay man, am processing the situation as it unfolds. I applaud the Police for taking this crime seriously, and President Lepre for how she is handling the situation.

In the end, I think it is safe to say that despite this crime, I still feel safe being an openly gay man at Salisbury University. My views may not be shared by some, and that is okay. But I hope it can help alleviate some of the fears of fellow members of the LGBT community on campus.

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By CHARLES, Salisbury University student who wished to remain anonymous

Featured image courtesy of The Bury Post