Slaying at Gay Bar Probed as Hate Crime

An attack outside a popular gay bar in downtown Riverside that left one man dead and another man wounded has been labeled a hate crime by police.

Authorities said they are still looking for a group of apparent skinheads who instigated the melee by yelling homosexual slurs at the victims before stabbing them.

“This is a hate crime, absolutely,” Riverside Police Chief Russell Leach said of Thursday’s attack outside the Menagerie nightclub. “Here we are in 2002 and still such a long way off from acceptance.”

Moreno Valley resident Jeffery Owens, 40, died of multiple stab wounds to the back. At the time of the attack, Owens was trying to come to the aid of friend Michael Bussee, 48, who had been slugged in the face and stabbed as he chatted with friends in the parking lot.

“You want some trouble ... fag, here it is,” the attacker yelled at Owens before jabbing a knife into him, police said.

No arrests have been made. Police are looking for four to six men with shaved heads.

Shocked by the attack and grieving for the loss of Owens, a regular who until recently worked for an AIDS education program, friends have continued to gather at the bar each night hoping to keep their own hate in check.

“Mostly people are just angry,” said David St. Pierre, owner of the Menagerie. “People just want to do something, but they don’t know what to do.”

On Sunday night, St. Pierre tried to fill that void with a vigil for Owens in the bar’s parking lot, where friends and strangers have left a growing mound of cards, candles and flowers.

Riverside’s mayor and the police chief were scheduled to attend, to pay their respects to Owens and show their support for the town’s gay community.

“The nature of this is a peace rally, to have the community come together,” Leach said. “And we want to be there to ensure the community their law enforcement is serious about prosecuting crimes motivated by hate.”

Police said the attack on Owens and Bussee seemed to come out of the blue.

Both men, who had come to the bar to celebrate a friend’s birthday, left with their partners about midnight Wednesday.

Owens, an avid photographer, had a stack of photos from a recent trip to Joshua Tree National Park in his van and invited everyone over to take a look.

As he retrieved the pictures, a man standing with a group of people in the parking lot approached Bussee and punched him before stabbing him in the back, the bar owner said.

As Bussee slouched into his friend’s van, Owens demanded to know what was happening and was then stabbed about four times in the back, although he didn’t realize it at the time, friends said.

Neither man knew how badly he was hurt, and they began to drive toward Moreno Valley. Soon, Owens told his friends he had pain in his back and thought maybe he had broken a rib.

They decided to stop at the county hospital in Moreno Valley. It was only as he stepped out of the van that friends saw his seat soaked in blood.

After two operations, Owens died about 8:30 a.m. Thursday, police said. Bussee, a marriage and family therapist, was released after being treated for the wound to his back.

Police said the area surrounding the Menagerie, sandwiched between a couple of straight bars and a coffeehouse, is usually trouble-free.

Problems have occasionally erupted on Wednesdays, however, at the nearby city-sponsored Market Night, a collection of food and craft booths downtown. Fights and loitering by gangs and teens had forced city officials to halt Market Night for a few years.

Despite the attack, St. Pierre said he considers Riverside to be a tolerant community. It’s only every now and then that patrons at surrounding bars or shops may shout a slur as customers hustle in and out of the Menagerie, he said.

“Not everybody is completely accepting,” St. Pierre said. “But then again, this bar has been here 20 years, and we’ve never had an incident to this extreme. And the local government is completely supportive of the gay and lesbian community.”

St. Pierre said his business has not been affected by the slaying. He had a full house over the weekend. Even Bussee dropped in to see his friends.

“It’s like terrorism,” St. Pierre said. “If you stop doing what you normally do, then they’ve won.”