>Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1993 10:54:37 EST >From: CENDO RICHARD >Subject: Gay murder in Texas (The rally referred to in the article is scheduled for Bergfield Park in Tyler, Texas, at 2 p.m. on Saturday, January 8.) New York Times, 12/27/93 KILLING OF A GAY RESIDENT STIRS ACTIVISM IN EAST TEXAS TOWN Tyler, Tex -- These night, few cars cruise Bergfield Park near downtown, a noted after-dark meeting place for homosexuals. The fear and shadows that have long dominated gay life in this East Texas city deepened three weeks ago when a group of men abducted a 23-year-old homosexual named Nicholas West from the park, drove him down a rural road and shot him to death. In addition to instilling fear, the slaying on the night of Nov. 30 has angered local homosexuals, who are now planning on holding the first protest by gay men and women in the city, on Jan. 8. But to the surprise of some gay rights advocates, the authorities here have not hesitated to call Mr. West's killing a hate crime, and prosecutors are vigorously pursuing the case. Leaders of gay groups say that while the violence against Mr. West underscores why homosexuals in East Texas remain closeted and fearful, the suthorities actions demonstrate the limits of intolerance. And that, they say, is an advance over previous official responses to gay bashing in Texas. After the 1991 beating and stabbing death of a gay banker by 10 young men in Houston, for example, the police first said there was no evidence the slaying had been a hate crime. Two years earlier, a Dallas judge had been censured after telling a reporter he had given a light sentence to a convicter murderer because the two men he killed were homosexual. Martin Hiraga, director of the anti-violence project of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, said, "I could confidently say that Texas is one of the most violently anti-gay states in the US." In a 1989 survey, he said, his group found that Texas ranked second to North Carolina in reported attacks on gay men and women. That survey has not been updated. Seventeen cases of gay bashing were reported in Texas in the first six months of this year, representing 7 percent of the state's hate crims, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. And the author of the hate crimes law enacted this year, State Senator Rodney Ellis, Democrat of Houston, said he had found it "totally impossible" to include a sexual orientation provision in his bill. An influential legislator, he said, "told me unequivocally it would not pass the Texas House if it had the words 'sexual orientation.'" The term was stricken, leaving very broad language that provides tougher penalties for crimes found to be motivated by "bias or prejuduce." In the view of these difficulties, gay rights advocates in Texas have been pleasantly surprised by the performance of the authorities here. "We've got a situation where the local people, the authorities, are standing up and saying 'We will not tolerate this.'" said John Ramos of Dallas, a board member of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a national group. "What you have is a complete change of attitude. I think it means progress to some extent." Mr. Ramos and others said the Jan. 8 march was intended to show appreciation for the police performance, as well as to educate. Officials here voiced surprise at the assumpltion that they would drag their heels because of Mr. West's homosexuality. "The man was murdered, he was robbed, he was kidnapped," said Jason Waller, a Smith County detective. "T%hat itself was offensive enough. The fact that Nicholas West was a homosexual shouldn't have anyhting to do with it. He was a victim." Jack Skeen, the Smith County District Attorney, said in an interview last week, "The bootom line is, it was a cold-blooded execution." Mr. Skeen said he was confident of a conviction. Mr. West drove to Bergfield Park about 7 on the night he was killed, the police said. The son of a public school teacher, he worked at a local medical records company. Friends say he was openly homosexual and often went to the park. In the summer, as many as 50 homosexuals a night come to this spot, surrounded by the graceful prewar homes of Tyler's Azalea District, where they often endure taunts and even bottle throwing by local college students, said Wesley Beard, a gay-rights advocate in this city of 75,000 east of Dallas. But police say it was not students who tormente Mr. West that night but a gang of at least three and possibly five young men. One of those arrested was Donald Aldrich, a 29-year-old former convict. Investogators described Mr. Aldrich as the ringleader of the men, who had already been named suspects in a string of burglaries, shootings, robberies, carjackings and arson when Mr. West was killed. That night, the police say, the men forced Mr. West at gunpoint into a car, took his wallet and his watch abd drove him about 20 miles down a winding trial road. Police say the men then forced Mr. West out of the car in an isolated spot, made him walk a short way and ordered him to remove his pants. The men then fired at least nine shots into Mr. West, whose body was found two days later by bikers, investigators said. A day after the body was found, the authorities, acting on an informer's tip, arrested Mr. Aldrich, 17-year-old David Ray McMillan and 19-year-old Henry Dunn, Jr., who are being held in the Smith County jail. >From the men's statements, detectives say, it became clear that Mr. West was killed because he was homosexual. The three were charged with capital murder, not wioth a hate crime, since the former charge is sufficent to warrant the death penalty, which prosecutors say they will seek. Mr. Beard, a 21-year-old auctioneer in nearby Jacksonville whose televised declaration of his homosexuality last March brought him death threats, appeared on a local televsion news program again after Mr. West was killed. One caller to his home warned him "You're next" and someone scratched the word "fag" into the paint on his pickup truck. Mr. Beard laughs off the harassment and says he is not leaving town. At the nearest gay bar, in Longview, 40 miles northeast of here, patron recently described the indignities of gay life in East Texas and their anger in the wake of Mr. West's killing. "It upsets me a lot," said 23-year-old Chris Roberts, a recent graduate of East Texas Baptist University in nearby Marshall. "There's a lot of prejuduce. A lot of ignorance." A 21-year-old patron who gave his name only as Chad said: "You have to be very careful about who you tell and what you tell. Tyler and East Texas is just not a place to be if you're gay." The Rev. David Galloway, the minister of Christ Epistcopal Church here, conceded, "There's a lot of side jokes that get told at the country clubs and at parties," but he said homosexuals were not so much hated as never publically acknowledged. Indeed, Mr. West's father, Morris, a part-time music director at the Tyler Christian Fellowship and a former Baptist Missionary, angril;y refused to discuss his son. He accused gay rights advocates of using his son's death for political purposes. The advocates rejected this view. "This guy can't just doe in vain," said Dianne Hardy-Garcia of Austin, executive director of the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas. "You can't just kill a gay man in Texas and think we won't talk about it."