Source: Xtra West, Xtra West, CBC
Vancouver police are investigating one recent alleged gay-bashing in downtown Vancouver, but several similar incidents have gotten little attention, the alleged victims say.
Vancouver police say they are investigating a possible hate crime after a 24-year-old man was punched in the face several times for singing Christmas carols, CBC reports.
The victim was walking past a Christmas light display in downtown Vancouver on on November 30 when he and a friend broke into song.
Another group of men objected, shouted a gay slur, then punched the victim and ran off.
The victim's friends called 911 and followed the alleged attacker. Police quickly arrested 21-year-old Christopher Mercier, who is charged with one count of assault, according to CBC.
Vancouver Police Department hate crimes investigator Tim Houchen declined to say what comments were made prior to the attack, but says the incident has been classified as "a hate-motivated assault", according to Xtra West.
"This is exactly why we want people to report. This is why we want people informed," Houchen told Xtra West. "If somebody just takes this as, 'Ennh, it's just an assault' then the issues aren't addressed.
But victims of at least three other alleged gay bashing incidents told Vancouver's gay newspaper, Xtra West, that the police have told them little could be done about their cases.
The reports follow a similar incident in September when a gay man was allegedly assaulted while walking with his boyfriend on Davie Street.
Michael Kandola is awaiting trial in that case on aggravated assault charges, and prosecutors have also suggested they will seek to have Kandola convicted under Canada's hate crime legislation, CBC reports.
Under Section 718.2 of the Criminal Code, a judge can impose a longer sentence when an offence was motivated by bias, prejudice, or hate based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, color, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or any other similar factor.
In one of the more recent incidents, a West End gay man told Xtra West he was called a fag and sucker punched on December 4 as he walked hand in hand with his boyfriend near the corner of Davie and Burrard Sts.
Chris Hiller, 25, told Xtra West that he and his boyfriend had left Numbers, a gay bar on Davie, and were walking south on Burrard St at around 8 pm when he became aware of someone walking behind them.
All of a sudden, Hiller says, "my friend goes, 'Come on, Chris, let's keep walking, and next thing I know I'm on the ground with my face covered in blood and dazed, and my friend's gone to get help."
Hiller said he heard male voice just before he hit the ground saying, 'You fag, I'm going to beat the shit out of you, I don't like you, stay away from me. Don't even come near me, you fag.'"
He told Xtra West that remembers being hit twice, once on the jaw, which knocked him to the ground where he hit his head, and a second blow that caught him in the teeth.
Hiller said the police came about 10 to 15 minutes after the incident but told him there was nothing they could do as they didn't have a description of the attacker.
"They said, 'We can take you to the hospital and they can deal with you,'" says Hiller who ended up at St Paul's Hospital for treatment.
Const Tim Fanning of the Vancouver Police Department told Xtra West he cannot find a record of the incident but takes the opportunity to remind the queer community to continue reporting any attacks right away.
"Phone 911. Most people have a cell phone. If not, run to the nearest open business," Fanning advises. "There's a lot of late-night businesses in the Davie Village certainly, so you can get some help.
"Try to remember whatever you can," Fanning adds. "What they were wearing, what they look like. If you see them hop into a car, of course get a license number.
In a separate incident on November 8, a Yaletown gay man told Xtra West that he was called a faggot, then punched and kicked repeatedly in the head by four men several blocks away on Davie Street after he left another gay club, 1181.
Chad Wilkinson, 32, told Xtra West that he left the club after 2 am and was near his Homer St residence when the alleged attack took place. As he reached the park at the corner of Davie and Richards Sts and began crossing to the other side of Richards, Wilkinson says he saw another man coming towards him.
"He started to cross at the same time I did," Wilkinson recalls, "and he looked at me and he had a sort of a serious look. And then he said, 'What are you staring at?'"
That's when Wilkinson says the man "called me a faggot."
"He just started to antagonize me," Wilkinson says, "and I was like, 'Look, I'm not staring at you. I've nothing to stare at you [about].'"
Wilkerson told Xtra West that three other men soon joined the first man and all of them began to punch and -- when he fell to the ground -- kick him.
He said he was able to eventually fight off his attackers, who fled.
At the urging of friends who worried about his battered face, Wilkinson says he went to Vancouver General Hospital the next day to have a CT scan, which showed that his jaw was not broken. He was discharged from hospital.
At his friends' urging, he then called the police.
But Wilkinson told Xtra West that when he spoke to Const Corey Bech, the Vancouver police officer was "reluctant to identify this as a hate crime."
"He feels that because I was by myself, and I don't really give off the air of a homosexual that much, that he just thought that those comments were general comments," Wilkinson recalls.
But the head of the Vancouver Police Department's (VPD) diversity section, John deHaas, says Wilkinson's account of the incident would indicate that there was "a bias, prejudice or hatred" towards queers as a group.
"The impact isn't just Chad. The impact is to a group and we get that, and the law gets that," deHaas says. "So from what you've told me, it definitely falls within that section of the [Criminal] Code and needs to be investigated that way. And if we can identify the people, bring them in the justice system, that should be put towards the judge."
DeHaas says he doesn't know if Bech is a new officer, and would "have to enquire if this is a training deficiency" or "a misunderstanding."
Houchen, the VPD hate crimes investigator, told Xtra West that Bech's report is fine. "He's done a great report and a great investigation," he said.
Houchen said he has made sure that the incident report is classified correctly. "I classified it as a hate-motivated offence Nov 14," Houchen reveals.
"I'm not looking at trying to find out who's making mistakes," he adds. "We're trying to ensure that those mistakes get caught and get corrected."
In a third incident on December 5, a gay man says he and his partner were walking west on Davie St near the Score sports lounge just before midnight when they heard homophobic slurs being yelled out of a party bus going by.
Tom McKenna, 41, who's lived in the West End for 18 years, said he was worried enough by the incident that he called police when he got home 10 minutes later.
"Initially, it was like, 'It's too bad you didn't get the license plate, I'm not sure how much we can do,'" says McKenna when asked how the police responded to his call.
"I said, look, you and I both know that verbal altercations lead to physical altercations a slight majority of the time. You need to send someone out because when these drunken yahoos finish at the end of the night, or they get off that bus, they're going to be looking for action," McKenna recalls telling the police.
"At the end they agreed that it was serious," he told Xtra West.
McKenna told Xtra West that incidents like this happen on a regular basis in the West End.
"We've had everything from someone scratching 'fag' in the back of our car to, on Christmas Eve about four years ago, my 80-year-old uncle, my spouse and I were walking back on Denman St and we were literally followed by three guys in a car saying, 'Hey, you homos, who's that? Is that your date for tonight? Are you going for a threesome?'
Source: Gay man called a fag, then sucker punched | Xtra West
Another gay man bashed on Davie St | Xtra West
Punching of Christmas carol singer a possible hate crime: police | CBC