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The Star-Ledger
Gay couple claims
attack in Newark
was bias related
by Sharon Adarlo and
Ralph R. Ortegaa From the Web, March 17, 2009
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Pattti Sapone/The Star-Ledger |
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Daniel Caldwell, who was allegedly
beaten by a crowd a few blocks away from the Prudential Center on Saturday
night.
A group of at least a dozen teenagers assaulted six people in two separate
incidents, one of them possibly a bias crime, after the Britney Spears' concert
in Newark Saturday night.
Bobby Daniel Caldwell, 36, and his partner Joshua Kehoe, 25, both from Kearny,
said they were returning to their car parked near Raymond Boulevard and Broad
Street from the Prudential Center at approximately 11 p.m. when a group of 15 to
20 teenage girls and boys approached them from the opposite direction and then
punched and kicked them as they yelled an anti-gay slur.
After they stole Kehoe's cellphone, the group then assaulted four female college
students who had been walking behind them, Kehoe said. They fled with one
of the girls' purses, said Police Director Garry McCarthy during an interview
today.
Detective Hubert Henderson said the college students did not suffer serious
injuries.
Caldwell was not as lucky. He suffered a broken jaw that doctors had to
fix by inserting two metal plates and wires, Kehoe said. For the next
several weeks, Caldwell has to subsist on a liquid diet, Kehoe said.
"I have to drink a sippy cup, like two-year-old," Caldwell mumbled through his
wired jaw as he sat in their Kearny apartment.
Kehoe said the crowd deliberately targeted him and his partner because they were
gay. McCarthy said while they have not determined if it was a bias
incident, investigators were busy today interviewing the victims and looking at
surveillance footage.
"If it turns out that it is a bias crime, then it is what it is" he said.
Kehoe said he was positive it was a bias incident because they used an epithet
commonly used to demean homosexuals.
"No matter how you look at it, it is a hate crime," he said.
Paul Loriquet, a spokesman for the Essex County Prosecutor's office, said the
prosecutor's bias unit had already joined in the investigation. Security
videos taken in the area on Saturday night are being reviewed.
Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, a Montclair-based gay
rights organization, said his group is looking into the attack.
"You have two people have the living daylights beaten out of them, while they
are called a (epithet)," he said. "If that's not a hate crime then I don't
know what it is."
Within minutes of the attack, Caldwell was taken to University Hospital with his
jaw broken in two places. Kehoe said he had to wait for police for 45
minutes at the site of the assault even though several squad cars passed the
scene. Kehoe said a security guard at a nearby building and two passersby
called police, with one of them even flagging down a patrol car that drove away.
"It was like you were in a town with no police and people on the loose," Kehoe
said.
McCarthy and Mayor Cory Booker said police were busy at that time breaking up a
crowd of 400 to 500 teenagers fighting in front of the Sugar Rays nightclub
about seven blocks away on Park Place. The crew that attacked Kehoe,
Caldwell and the college girls was a splinter group from the mob fighting in
front of the nightclub, McCarthy said. that is.
"Unfortunately, our officers were responding to what was called a general call
for support, so numerous of our officers fled to the scene of what was
happening, and left this individual vulnerable to this attack by these
children," said Booker, referring to Caldwell, who suffered the brunt of the
abuse.
Sugar Rays, adjacent to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, was having an
alcohol-free teen event from about 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday, according to
Miles Berger, one of the owners.
Berger said he didn't know if any Sugar Rays patrons were involved in the latest
violence.
"Whether they went to Sugar Rays or not, they have to be found and prosecuted to
the fullest extent of the law," he said.
Berger also owns the Robert Treat Hotel across the street, where violence
erupted after an event on Feb. 22 in which three men were shot outside the
ballroom where a late-night hip-hop dance party was taking place.
Authorities said the shooting was sparked by a dispute. Jasper Kane, 21,
of Newark was arrested on March 13 in connection with the shooting.
Both Booker and McCarthy insisted future events would not spark similar
problems, once legislation requiring a police security review is approved by the
city council. McCarthy said he expected the council's approval may come as
soon as next week. The ordinance would require event organizers to submit
a security plan, and apply for a permit.
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