Laguna Council Seeks to Stem Attacks on Gays

Reacting to an outcry from the city’s sizable homosexual community, the Laguna Beach City Council moved Tuesday night to stem an escalating problem of violence against local gays.

The five-member council unanimously adopted a resolution decrying the violence and urging the Orange County district attorney’s office to vigorously prosecute any individuals arrested.

“Laguna Beach will not tolerate violence toward the gay and lesbian community, or any community members, and . . . will do everything in its power to bring an end to gay violence,” said the resolution introduced by Mayor Pro Tem Robert F. Gentry, one of the first openly gay elected officials in Southern California.

The council also voted to work with gay community groups to implement such suggestions as increasing police patrols in gay “cruising” areas and installing telephones in Heisler Park, where some of the recent attacks have occurred.

Dispelling ‘Homophobia’

The council also called for a meeting with officials from local schools, churches and businesses to discuss ways to dispel “homophobia” through education.

Many in the crowd of some 50 people who attended the meeting expressed support for the council’s action.

“You should be able to walk in the park without fear of being injured,” said Laguna Beach resident Alex Wentzel, a gay community leader. “To me, (it) is reprehensible that this has been going on.”

Heterosexuals in the audience said the entire community should be concerned about the violence, noting that some of the victims were not gay. There have been incidents, they said, in which heterosexuals mistaken for gays have been attacked.

The outbreak of recent violence against gays in Laguna Beach began June 18 when at least two young men attacked two homosexual men who had stepped out for fresh air from the Little Shrimp bar on South Coast Highway. The men were climbing back up the stairs from the beach that night, they said, when they were set upon by youths who beat them with a pipe-like instrument, yelling, “Faggots!”

One of the men, a 42-year-old Irvine resident, was left permanently blinded in his left eye. His companion was bruised but otherwise unhurt. Police have no suspects in custody in connection with that attack.

A second “gay bashing” incident occurred July 14 in Heisler Park, where three young men described by police as Skinheads bludgeoned a Los Angeles man with a pipe so severely that he required 80 stitches to close head wounds. Three men from Huntington Beach were charged with assault with a deadly weapon in that attack and are awaiting trial.

A third attack, also in Heisler Park, occurred on July 31, when three youths beat a lone transient and discharged gunshots into the air before fleeing. Those suspects have not been apprehended.

The fourth and most recent incident occurred Aug. 7, when rifle shots were fired from across Coast Highway into an area where the Little Shrimp and some other gay businesses are located. No one was injured in the shooting and police have no suspects.

Taunts, Threats

Although there have been no reported attacks since then, Gentry said he is aware of separate recent incidents in which a man and a woman were taunted and threatened with physical violence because of their perceived homosexuality.

“Gay bashing is on the upswing both here and across the country,” Gentry said, citing statistics from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force that show that the number of reported gay bashing incidents nationwide has more than tripled, from 2,000 to 7,000 over the past two years.

Gentry attributed the violence to fear over the AIDS epidemic. He said some heterosexuals blame gays for the outbreak of the disease. Homosexual men remain the largest group of people to have contracted AIDS.

In Laguna Beach, where gays make up an estimated 15% to 25% of the city population of 25,000, there have been about 100 reported cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.