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Matthew Shephard killed by drug war, not homophobia
22 SepNew book questions Matthew Shepard killing
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A cross made of stones rests below the fence in Laramie, Wyoming where gay college student Matthew Shepard was beaten and left for dead.
Photo: AP
Matthew Shepard wasn’t killed because he was gay, a new book says — but that won’t stop advocates from politicizing his murder.
Fifteen years ago this Oct. 6, Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard was savagely pistol-whipped by two homophobes for being gay, then pitilessly strung up on a log fence to die. It was a modern crucifixion, the signature hate crime of our era, the inspiration for books and movies and plays and songs and documentaries.
Except Shepard wasn’t murdered because he was gay, contends a new book. He was slain in a methamphetamine frenzy primarily by one man (with an accomplice who perhaps didn’t participate in the actual beating) who initially said that Shepard promised drugs in exchange for sex.
So, not only was Shepard’s primary killer not a homophobe who decided to lure Matt into a fatal trap because he was gay, he was himself likely gay or bisexual, contends gay journalist Stephen Jimenez in “The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard.”
The notion that Shepard was murdered for being gay originally came from two friends of his who had no firsthand knowledge of the case but started the homophobia narrative when Shepard was still alive (he didn’t die until five days after the attack) by calling a gay reporter, several gay organizations and the police.
By the time Shepard died, the motive of homophobia was solidly entrenched in the media. Then the leader in the killing, Aaron McKinney, and his girlfriend both cited his gay panic as a motive, apparently in the belief that it would be seen as a mitigating factor.
Now both of them say that story was a lie. And McKinney told a detective the night of the crime that Shepard “said he could turn us on to some cocaine or something, some methamphetamines, one of those two, for sex,” according to the book. From prison, McKinney now says his “original plan” that night was to rob a meth dealer, but when that didn’t work out he decided to rob Shepard instead. Prosecutor Cal Rerucha told the author that the murder was “driven by drugs.”
McKinney’s own father, when asked whether his son had had sex with other men, said “we’ve all experimented one way or another.” A limo driver told Jimenez he saw McKinney and two other men in the back of his vehicle “buck naked” and “playing around.” A manager of a gay bar in Denver told Jimenez he recognized both McKinney and accomplice Russell Henderson as patrons of his place.
A boyfriend of Shepard’s, Ted Henson, who said he went to a gay bar with McKinney and Shepard, said the latter once told him that “Aaron had offered [him] sex for money” and that “McKinney would sell [himself] to other guys.”
McKinney’s friend Elaine Baker said, “The whole thing was a lie and a coverup. Aaron didn’t hate [Shepard] for being gay. They were friends, for God’s sake . . . Aaron was bisexual.” McKinney’s friend Ryan Bopp said that McKinney and Shepard “knew each other. I had seen them at parties . . . I knew Aaron was selling [drugs] . . . him and Matt would go off to the side and they’d come back.”
McKinney, while denying being gay or bisexual, did, in an interview with the author, admit “messing around” with other boys as a youngster, which he dismissed as “the usual kids’ stuff.” He and Bopp said he’d been up for a week on a drug bender the night of Shepard’s murder.
Though the book is largely persuasive, there are oddities in Jimenez’s reporting, which sprang from his work on a 2004 piece for “20/20.” He says a Wyoming law-enforcement official declared flat-out that the murders had nothing to do with Shepard’s sexuality — but declined to go on the record because he said he feared someone might put a hit on members of his family. Jimenez says a police car tailed him while he was reporting the story. He tells dramatic tales of Deep Throat types leaving him anonymous letters or claiming that they risk getting a bullet in the back for talking.
In essence “The Book of Matt” is not about the killers’ culpability but about sloppiness on the part of the media and allied organizations who used the Shepard case in fundraising pitches. (This very article will be used in a similar fashion by groups that win donations by stoking fear and hatred of “right-wing media.”)
But if Jimenez’s somewhat problematic book is correct, it doesn’t make Shepard’s brutal murder any less horrific. It does make it less political, however. Political action groups won’t like that.
The gay magazine The Advocate said in a review that Jimenez “amassed enough anecdotal evidence to build a persuasive case that Shepard’s sexuality was, if not incidental, certainly less central than popular consensus has lead us to believe.”
The magazine went on, “There are valuable reasons for telling certain stories in a certain way at pivotal times, but that doesn’t mean we have to hold on to them once they’ve outlived their usefulness.”
Around the country, people head to college or vacation…
17 Jul….with libertarian bumperstickers. And they get this:
You used drugs? No job for you!
10 Apr
Salesperson Renewal
Additional Renewal Information:
Specify your renewal as: Residential or Commercial . Select Commercial only if you have not provided real estate brokerage services in any residential transaction in the past 2 years and do not intend do so within the next 2 years.
According to our records, you have at least ten years of experience.
Continuing Education (CE):
To renew your license in Active status, you must have completed a specified number of hours and course content of continuing education (CE), since your last renewal. This requirement depends upon the number of years that you have been licensed, and whether you provide any residential brokerage services.
Keep your completion certificates as proof of course completion. Random audits will be performed by the Maryland Real Estate Commission. Failure to complete the required education prior to renewal could result in suspension or revocation of your license. Only courses approved by the Maryland Real Estate Commission fulfill this requirement.
Have you completed the CE hours required since your last renewal? Yes No
Ownership Notice:
| Yes | No | |
|---|---|---|
| An associate broker or salesperson may not own directly or indirectly or in combination with any other associate broker or salesperson more than 50% of any business which provides real estate brokerage services. Do you own directly or indirectly or in combination with other associate brokers or salespersons more than 50% of the real estate business with which you are affiliated? |
Workers Compensation:
| I have Workers Compensation CoveragePolicy/Binder No. Issued by the | |
| I am not an employer required to provide employee coverage under the Workers Compensation Law. |
Required Information:
Since your last license was issued, have you:
| Yes | No | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor in any State or Federal court? | ||
| 2. | Had this type of license denied, suspended, or revoked by Maryland or any other State? | ||
| 3. | Been convicted of or received probation before judgment of any drug offense committed after January 1, 1991? |
Certification:
I hereby certify, under penalty of perjury, that the information contained herein is true and correct to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief. I further authorize the release of any information contained within this application to an authorized representative of the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation for further investigation. I further certify that I have paid all undisputed taxes and unemployment insurance contributions payable to the Comptroller or the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation or have provided for payment in a manner satisfactory to the unit responsible for collection.
You used drugs? Give up on getting work then
10 Apr
Salesperson Renewal
Additional Renewal Information:
Specify your renewal as: Residential or Commercial . Select Commercial only if you have not provided real estate brokerage services in any residential transaction in the past 2 years and do not intend do so within the next 2 years.
According to our records, you have at least ten years of experience.
Continuing Education (CE):
To renew your license in Active status, you must have completed a specified number of hours and course content of continuing education (CE), since your last renewal. This requirement depends upon the number of years that you have been licensed, and whether you provide any residential brokerage services. Keep your completion certificates as proof of course completion. Random audits will be performed by the Maryland Real Estate Commission. Failure to complete the required education prior to renewal could result in suspension or revocation of your license. Only courses approved by the Maryland Real Estate Commission fulfill this requirement. Have you completed the CE hours required since your last renewal? Yes No
Ownership Notice:
| Yes | No | |
|---|---|---|
| An associate broker or salesperson may not own directly or indirectly or in combination with any other associate broker or salesperson more than 50% of any business which provides real estate brokerage services. Do you own directly or indirectly or in combination with other associate brokers or salespersons more than 50% of the real estate business with which you are affiliated? |
Workers Compensation:
| I have Workers Compensation CoveragePolicy/Binder No. Issued by the | |
| I am not an employer required to provide employee coverage under the Workers Compensation Law. |
Required Information:
Since your last license was issued, have you:
| Yes | No | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Been convicted of a felony or misdemeanor in any State or Federal court? | ||
| 2. | Had this type of license denied, suspended, or revoked by Maryland or any other State? | ||
| 3. | Been convicted of or received probation before judgment of any drug offense committed after January 1, 1991? |
Certification:
I hereby certify, under penalty of perjury, that the information contained herein is true and correct to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief. I further authorize the release of any information contained within this application to an authorized representative of the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation for further investigation. I further certify that I have paid all undisputed taxes and unemployment insurance contributions payable to the Comptroller or the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation or have provided for payment in a manner satisfactory to the unit responsible for collection.
Jim Crow Still Exists In America
22 JanJim Crow Still Exists In America
The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Paperback, 312 pages | purchase
MORE ON THIS BOOK:
Under Jim Crow laws, black Americans were relegated to a subordinate status for decades. Things like literacy tests for voters and laws designed to prevent blacks from serving on juries were commonplace in nearly a dozen Southern states.
In her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, legal scholar Michelle Alexander writes that many of the gains of the civil rights movement have been undermined by the mass incarceration of black Americans in the war on drugs. She says that although Jim Crow laws are now off the books, millions of blacks arrested for minor crimes remain marginalized and disfranchised, trapped by a criminal justice system that has forever branded them as felons and denied them basic rights and opportunities that would allow them to become productive, law-abiding citizens.
“People are swept into the criminal justice system — particularly in poor communities of color — at very early ages … typically for fairly minor, nonviolent crimes,” she tells Fresh Air‘s Dave Davies. “[The young black males are] shuttled into prisons, branded as criminals and felons, and then when they’re released, they’re relegated to a permanent second-class status, stripped of the very rights supposedly won in the civil rights movement — like the right to vote, the right to serve on juries, the right to be free of legal discrimination and employment, and access to education and public benefits. Many of the old forms of discrimination that we supposedly left behind during the Jim Crow era are suddenly legal again, once you’ve been branded a felon.”
On Monday’s Fresh Air, Alexander details how President Reagan’s war on drugs led to a mass incarceration of black males and the difficulties these felons face after serving their prison sentences. She also details her own experiences working as the director of the Racial Justice Program at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Enlargecourtesy of the author
Michelle Alexander is an associate law professor at The Ohio State University. She clerked for Justice Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court and is a graduate of Stanford Law School.
Interview Highlights
On the number of blacks in the criminal justice system
“Today there are more African-Americans under correctional control — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. There are millions of African-Americans now cycling in and out of prisons and jails or under correctional control. In major American cities today, more than half of working-age African-American men are either under correctional control or branded felons and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives.”
On the war on drugs — and federal incentives given out through the war on drugs — as the primary causes of the prison explosion in the United States
“Federal funding has flowed to state and local law enforcement agencies who boost the sheer numbers of drug arrests. State and local law enforcement agencies have been rewarded in cash for the sheer numbers of people swept into the system for drug offenses, thus giving law enforcement agencies an incentive to go out and look for the so-called ‘low-hanging fruit’: stopping, frisking, searching as many people as possible, pulling over as many cars as possible, in order to boost their numbers up and ensure the funding stream will continue or increase.”
On President Reagan’s war on drugs
“He declared the drug war primarily for reasons of politics — racial politics. Numerous historians and political scientists have documented that the war on drugs was part of a grand Republican Party strategy known as the “Southern strategy” of using racially coded ‘get-tough’ appeals on issues of crime and welfare to appeal to poor and working-class whites, particularly in the South, who were resentful of, anxious about and threatened by many of the gains of African-Americans in the civil rights movement.”
On racial profiling
“I think it’s very easy to brush off the notion that the system operates much like a caste system, if in fact you are not trapped within it. I have spent years representing victims of racial profiling and police brutality and investigating patterns of drug law enforcement in poor communities of color, and attempting to help people who have been released from prison attempting to ‘re-enter’ into a society that never seemed to have much use to them in the first place. And in the course of that work, I had my own awakening about our criminal justice system and this system of mass incarceration. … My experience and research has led me to the regrettable conclusion that our system of mass incarceration functions more like a caste system than a system of crime prevention or control.”
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