Post by Logan on May 9, 2016 3:51:17 GMT -6
After Anti-Gay Attacks in Dallas, a Vow to Take Back Oak Lawn
Early Saturday morning, a man was walking his dog in the Oak Lawn neighborhood of Dallas, when two other men approached him. One made a derogatory comment about the dog-walker’s sexual orientation and shoved him into the ground, scraping the man’s face.
Police are calling the attack a hate crime, but it’s far from the worst – and far from uncommon – in Oak Lawn, long the center of Dallas’s gay community. Fourteen attacks and robberies since last summer, yet no arrests. Frustration in this part of Dallas is beginning to mirror that of New York in the 1970s, when the so-called Pink Panthers organized patrols to protect their LGBT neighbors from attacks. Could something like the Pink Panthers be forming in Dallas?
Michael Dominguez, a community organizer with Take Back Oak Lawn, says it started in October 2015. After having drinks with friends at a bar in his Oak Lawn neighborhood, Dominguez said he left to walk home.
“The last thing I remember is saying goodbye to everybody, I walked out of the bar and waved to the door guy,” he says. “The next thing I know, I woke up in the trauma unit with about four or five doctors standing around me, stitching up my face.”
Read more: www.texasstandard.org/stories/lgbt-resident-group-forms-patrols-to-take-back-oak-lawn/
Early Saturday morning, a man was walking his dog in the Oak Lawn neighborhood of Dallas, when two other men approached him. One made a derogatory comment about the dog-walker’s sexual orientation and shoved him into the ground, scraping the man’s face.
Police are calling the attack a hate crime, but it’s far from the worst – and far from uncommon – in Oak Lawn, long the center of Dallas’s gay community. Fourteen attacks and robberies since last summer, yet no arrests. Frustration in this part of Dallas is beginning to mirror that of New York in the 1970s, when the so-called Pink Panthers organized patrols to protect their LGBT neighbors from attacks. Could something like the Pink Panthers be forming in Dallas?
Michael Dominguez, a community organizer with Take Back Oak Lawn, says it started in October 2015. After having drinks with friends at a bar in his Oak Lawn neighborhood, Dominguez said he left to walk home.
“The last thing I remember is saying goodbye to everybody, I walked out of the bar and waved to the door guy,” he says. “The next thing I know, I woke up in the trauma unit with about four or five doctors standing around me, stitching up my face.”
Read more: www.texasstandard.org/stories/lgbt-resident-group-forms-patrols-to-take-back-oak-lawn/