Entries from October 2006 ↓

Diligent work by the New York Police Department enabled detectives to track down the four men who lured, beat, and attempted to rob Michael Sandy last Sunday. He was left unconscious and in a coma after being hit by a car as he attempted to flee the scene. Sandy was taken off respirators Thursday night and died Friday.

With the good fortune of finding Sandy’s personal computer still on when they searched his apartment at the beginning of their investigation, police were able to piece together evidence that led to the arrest of John Fox, Gary Timmins, Ilya Shurov, and a fourth man, Anthony Fortunato, who has been questioned but thus far not charged.

Sunday’s New York Times has the moving and sad account of the fateful moment when Micheal Sandy made contact with his attackers, and the incident that ensued:

Officials say they believe the four gathered at Mr. Fortunato’s house on Sunday and began exchanging instant messages with Mr. Sandy, whom they may have found through the gay-themed Web site Adam4Adam.com. They apparently accessed the Web by tapping into a neighbor’s wireless Internet connection and used Mr. Fox’s America Online account and screen name, “fireyefox,” to exchange instant messages with Mr. Sandy, the officials said.

Posing as a single individual, they proposed a tryst. “Fireyefox” told Mr. Sandy to go to the corner of Emmons and Coyle Streets, about a block from Mr. Fortunato’s home in Sheepshead Bay, around 7:30 p.m. But when Mr. Sandy arrived, both Mr. Fox and Mr. Fortunato were waiting for him, officials said.

He decided to drive away. The officials are not sure why Mr. Sandy decided to leave, but said that during questioning, the suspects said that Mr. Sandy indicated he did not want to have group sex.

After arriving home, however, he continued exchanging messages with “fireyefox” and was eventually persuaded to return. They encouraged Mr. Sandy to bring marijuana and $100 for a hotel room. Mr. Sandy balked at the idea of a hotel room. He agreed to have sex on the beach and said he would bring a blanket. The last message was sent about 8:50 p.m.

He arrived back in Sheepshead Bay sometime after 9 p.m. This time, only Mr. Fox awaited him. They drove together in Mr. Sandy’s blue Mazda to the narrow, dark parking lot by Plumb Beach, a few blocks away.

The other three men, the officials say, were waiting out of sight. When they arrived, Mr. Fox said he had to go to the bathroom, and walked toward the beach.

Once Mr. Sandy was out of the car, the officials said, all four men confronted him. According to the criminal complaint against Mr. Shurov, he punched Mr. Sandy. It is not known if the other three men did as well.

As the attack went on, the men drifted toward the highway. Then Mr. Sandy walked onto it, waving his arms both to ward off the blows and to stop traffic. According to witnesses, he made it to the middle of the road. Mr. Fortunato and Mr. Timmins ran away, the officials said.

But according to the complaint against Mr. Shurov, two of the men struggled with Mr. Sandy on the Belt Parkway. The officials said that Mr. Shurov threw one more punch at Mr. Sandy, who turned, ran and was hit by a car, eyewitnesses said. The officials said that Mr. Fox then ran away. The vehicle has not been identified, nor the driver located.

But the attack was not over. Before departing, according to the witnesses cited in the criminal complaint, Mr. Shurov rifled through Mr. Sandy’s pockets.

He found nothing, and all four returned to Mr. Fortunato’s home later that night.

Undoubtedly, there will be some who will attempt to blame the victim. Defense attorneys usually try to employ that strategy. They’ll try to impugn Michael Sandy’s character or question why he was looking for sex on the internet in the first place. They’ll take issue with the practice of “gay cruising” or even subtly question the morality of homosexuality itself.

But Michael Sandy’s sexual orientation didn’t cause his death. The internet isn’t responsible either. At least three men, with a scheme to rob people they thought would be vulnerable targets are to blame for his being in a location where he had to run for his life by crossing a busy highway where he was subsequently hit by a car. Those are the straight facts.

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

The tale of the first two games of the NLCS is one of good pitching and so-so pitching. Where Game 1 saw a masterful display by both the Mets’ Tom Glavine and the Cardinals’ Jeff Weaver, Game 2 saw St. Louis ace Chris Carpenter and Mets’ rookie John Maine struggle through the first half of the game before both gave way to their respective bullpens, before Mets relievers gave up game tying then game winning runs, in route to a 9-6 Cardinals win.

The Mets (and their fans) have been on pins and needles since the loss of their two starters, Pedro Martinez and Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez just prior to the start of the NLDS. While this team has used 13 different starters over the course of the regular season, the uncertainty of the pitching rotation has kept us only cautiously optimistic about our playoff future.

Friday night’s game demonstrated that while Maine is a good pitcher with a bright future, in a short series, the weight placed on his shoulders may be more than he can handle at this stage. Further, the usually reliable setup man Guillermo Mota, and closer Billy Wagner, who both worked in Game 1, failed them at the worst time, demonstrating a vulnerability the Mets will need to address if they want to continue.

This was the first Mets loss in the 2007 playoffs (they swept the Dodgers), and we aren’t in panic mode yet here in New York. But with Games 3, 4 and 5 in St. Louis, we need to grab the first one to regain momentum and at least one of the remaining two to get back to New York if we want a chance at clinching.

Michael Sandy, the Black gay man lured over the Internet to a public park in Brooklyn under the expectation of a sexual hook-up, then robbed, beaten and left unconscious after being hit by a car as he attempted to flee his attackers, has died. Sandy was in a coma since the incident on Sunday, and only taken off life support systems Thursday night, the day he also marked his 29th birthday. He reportedly passed around midday Friday.

His alleged assailants, four White men from the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn, were apprehended within days of the assault. Three of the men, John Fox, 19, Gary Timmins, 16, and Ilye Shurov, 20, have been charged with assault and attempted robbery during the commission of a hate crime. According to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, the charges against the three men arrested in the attack are likely to be upgraded, but as of this time, no official decision has been made. They have been arraigned and are being held at Rikers Island without bail. Charges still might be filed against Anthony Fortunato, 20, who was questioned and released, police sources said. Police are also looking for the driver of the car that hit Sandy.

As reported on KeithBoykin.com, a protest rally is being planned for next Monday at City Hall in New York.

In an interview to be aired this Sunday on the CBS news magazine, 60 Minutes, one of the women hired to dance at a Duke University lacrosse team party now makes statements contradicting her fellow dancer, who accused three men of raping her.

Kim Roberts, who danced at the same party where the alleged rape took place, told correspondent Ed Bradley that she and the accuser were not pulled apart by alleged rapists as stated in the complaint and that she was hearing such information for the first time.

Asked whether she, Roberts, was holding onto the accuser at the beginning of the alleged crime, Bradley read from the complaint, “‘Brett, Adam and Matt grabbed me. They separated us at the master bedroom door while we tried to hold on to each other. Bret, Adam and Matt took me into the bathroom.’ Were you holding on to each other? Were you pulled apart?”

“Nope,” Roberts replied.

Questioned further about whether she saw signs of rape from the accuser, Roberts replied, “She obviously wasn’t hurt … because she was fine.”

Bradley also interviewed the three defendants, Collin Finnerty, Reade Selligmann and team co-captain David Evans, all of whom proclaim their innocence.

Bradley spoke on The Early Show regarding the case. A video of that interview can be seen here (requires RealPlayer or Windows Media Player): http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2087594n

It is interesting to me to see how the Internet has replaced the public library as a major research institution. Instead of getting up out of our homes and traveling across town to check out books and actually read them, many people instead log on, Google and expect to find answers to their many questions.

On one level I suppose it is about convenience and ease. You don’t have to get dressed to Google. But there is also the ability to ask questions and research topics about which there are no simple or easily found answers. Gossip and rumor don’t often make it into books—there are libel laws against such things—but anything and everything can find its way onto the Internet.

Every day I check my tracker to see how many folks have come to this blog, from which referring websites, through what searchengine queries, and where they are located geographically.

It amuses me how some of the same searchengine queries show up every day. Nearly every day, someone, somewhere, queries “Robin Roberts, is she gay” referring to the host of ABC’s Good Morning America. Almost as common is the same question posed in reference to Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Dhani Jones.

Now, queries will look for all of those words in every website and post the results. Because the word “gay” has appeared on this website on more than a few occasions, that will put this site on the results list. I made reference to Robin Roberts when I wrote about the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Roberts is from the Gulf Coast and shared her take, and I linked to her story. Thus, Robin Roberts will also show up on this site. Similarly, a link I have over on the right for Dhani Jones’s website, will put him on a results listing.

But let me state for the record for the next person who is curious about the sexual orientation of Robin Roberts and/or Dhani Jones and does a Google search:

“There is NO information on Bejata.com that will definitively state the sexual orientation of either Robin Roberts or Dhani Jones. Nothing posted on this website will identify either of them as gay.”

Hopefully future search queries will cause the above sentence to show up in the list of results and people will stop coming here looking for the answer.