Gay Man Says Attackers Used Slur, Threatened to Kill Him

Jim Atlas Hill, a 22-year-old gay man from Lancaster, said he didn’t pay much attention when people in a passing car shouted a crude name at him as he was walking to a West Hollywood nightspot early Sunday.

But minutes later, when those four people chased him, beat him and struck him with the car, the hate behind that epithet hit home.

“The whole time, they were telling me these exact words: ‘We’re going to kill you, faggot,’ ” Hill recalled Monday. “I kinda felt that was what they planned to do.”

Hill, who was recuperating from what authorities believe was a gay-bashing incident, said his good physical condition and a strong will to live may have saved his life.

“When I die, I want it to be of natural causes,” he said. “Not because of some unintelligent punks.”

Four suspects were arrested in connection with the beating after a witness saw them driving in the area shortly after the attack and pointed them out to sheriff’s deputies.

Booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and civil rights violations were Jerry Chappa and Jesus Betancourt, both of Montebello, and Hector Camacho of Los Angeles, all 19. A fourth suspect, a 15-year-old from East Los Angeles, was booked into Sylmar Juvenile Hall.

Hill, who works for his mother’s scrap lumber business in Lancaster, was released after treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for bruises, cuts and a swollen foot--run over by his attackers’ car.

In a brief interview, he expressed anger that he was beaten merely because of his sexual orientation.

“They singled me out because of who I am,” he said. “There were other people out there. I assume they could tell (I was gay) because of my attire.”

Hill, who said he was wearing a long-sleeved silk shirt, blue jeans and platform-type dress shoes, was attacked about 3 a.m. in the 7000 block of Santa Monica Boulevard.

According to authorities, four males in a car taunted Hill, drove off, then returned. Three of the teen-agers began beating him. When Hill tried to run away, the driver sped toward him, knocking him onto the hood of the car. When the driver stopped abruptly, Hill fell to the ground and the driver struck him again with the car.

Hill finally was able to run into a nearby restaurant for help. One deputy said the Lancaster man was lucky to have survived the attack.

Hill’s experience is not unusual, officials said. Last year in Los Angeles County, gay men supplanted African Americans as the primary target of hate crimes for the first time since 1980, when the county began tracking such incidents. Of the 783 hate crimes reported to the county Human Relations Commission last year, gay men were the victims in 27% of the cases.

Brian Levin, a visiting scholar at Stanford Law School who studies bias-linked violence, described the attack on Hill as “a textbook case in gay-bashing.”

Typically, Levin observed, young men from suburban areas will drive into urban, gay neighborhoods looking for a target. Assaults on gays tend to be more premeditated than racist attacks--and for those who carry them out, more acceptable, Levin said.

“The people who commit these crimes are your neighbors, the boy next door,” Levin added, noting that hate crimes are seldom committed by members of organized groups.

By bashing gays, the attackers seek to validate their own maleness, he said. “For people who are stressed, frustrated, out for a thrill and peer validation, gay people (are perceived as) a very good target to act out that aggression.”

Hill said he is relieved the suspects had been arrested, and is willing to testify against them.

“If it’s not me, it’s going to be someone else,” he said. “I just want them to know that they hurt an innocent person. I’m sure I wasn’t the first one. They pretty well knew what they were doing.”

Times staff writer Bettina Boxall contributed to this story.