HUNG JURY

Let's stop looking at hot guys for a while and do some hard hitting news for a change....

Equality California had a noose hung at the door of its Santa Ana office.  

In California, the law states that ANY threats of violence against a LGBT group is classified as a hate crime:

California Penal Code section 422.55, defines Hate Crime as being a criminal act committed, in whole or in part, because of one or more of the following actual or perceived characteristics of the victim: Disability, Gender, Nationality, Race or Ethnicity, Religion, Sexual Orientation, or association with a person or group of persons with one or more of the preceding actual or perceived characteristics.

Examples- painting racist, homophobic and/or religious graffiti on private property; burning a cross on an individual’s lawn; an assault; a criminal threat of violence against an individual or group; attempted murder or murder.     Via theliberaloc

When EC's employee Mel Distel alerted the authorities of the incident, police were TOTALLY disinterested and wrote the situation off with a shrug-the-shoulders response, "'sometimes you have to live with being a victim.'"  

WTF????????????

OC Weekly reports:

"There was nothing they could do, of course, there was no suspect and no crime had been committed. The officer said 'what it is, is a string on a door.' My vision got blurry, I was embarrased and felt stupid for making the call. I took a deep breath and said 'Do you see any correlation between the fact that this is a gay office and there was a noose left on our door in the wake of all of these teen suicides?' The officer said, 'Sometimes you just have to live with being a victim,' and proceeded to mention that his car had been broken into before." That didn't exactly sit well with Distel. "As if that's the same. As if having your stereo stolen is anything like the message 'You should kill yourself.' As if random theft is anything like an act meant to convey hate and stir up fear in the heart of a minority group."