Sailor Eulogized; Mourners Criticize Navy : Memorial: Family, friends say victim was killed because he was gay and that officials have withheld information.

A Navy seaman was eulogized as a gentle man by his mother and friends, who are alleging that his shipmates beat him to death because he was gay.

Allen Schindler’s mother told about 100 of her son’s friends and supporters in San Diego that Navy officials have not been forthcoming about his death.

“My son was a loving person. He’d never have hurt anyone,” Dorothy Hajdys said at Sunday’s memorial service. “I want to know what’s going on on his ship.”

The Navy and Hajdys have said Schindler told his captain that he was gay and asked for a discharge one month before his Oct. 27 death. Supporters say the 22-year-old Schindler had been harassed by shipmates for being homosexual.

Schindler was awaiting discharge for homosexuality when he was killed in a public restroom near a Navy base in Sasebo, Japan, where his amphibious assault ship, the Belleau Wood, was berthed.

The autopsy report said his skull was crushed, all but two of his ribs were broken, most of his vital organs were damaged and his genitals were lacerated.

Navy investigators have said gay-bashing may have been the motive for his slaying, but authorities have released few details of the investigation.

A hearing is scheduled today in Yokosuka, Japan, to determine whether Airman Apprentice Terry M. Helvey, 20, of Westland, Mich., should face court-martial on a murder charge, said Lt. Cmdr. Betsy Bird, a Pacific Fleet spokeswoman.

Another shipmate, Airman Apprentice Charles A. Vins, 20, of Sturgis, Mich., was convicted Nov. 23 at a court-martial of concealing a crime and resisting arrest. He was sentenced to a year in custody and was given a bad conduct discharge, Bird said.

Schindler’s slaying appalled San Diego’s gay and lesbian community, which has joined the militant national group Queer Nation in demanding a complete and open Navy investigation.

“We need to end this bigotry, this violence,” Schindler’s companion, Jim Jennings, 32, said during Sunday’s service. “We need to learn to live with one another as human beings.”

Rep. Lynn Schenk (D-San Diego), who attended the memorial, said she will join Rep. Gerry E. Studds (D-Mass.) in pressing for a thorough, unbiased Navy inquiry into Schindler’s death.